The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science by Will Storr

Description

This is a fascinating work of investigative journalism. The author, Will Storr, examines a range of beliefs that are antithetical to science, history, and even common sense. He interviews people who have these strange beliefs, and digs in deep. He tries to understand why people have these beliefs, their motivations, their way of thinking. Storr sometimes mentions the contradictions between these crazy ideas and reality–and listens carefully as these people rationalize their beliefs.

Storr interviews creationist John Mackay, UFO believers Glennys Mackay and Kay McCullock–and psychiatrist Professor John Mack, who tries to understand the psychology of why people believe in UFO’s and alien abductions. Storr joins an enormous yoga session led by “swami” Ramdev, and later interviews him and his assistants. Ramdev claims to be able to cure just about any disease, including cancer (but not AIDS). Storr interviews “past-life regression” counselors, and takes a radical ten-day Buddhist mediation course that turns out to be psychologically painful. He interviews people who are convinced that homeopathy works, and he interviews “skeptics” who turn out to be just as closed-minded as the so-called “quacks”. He interviews a climate-change denier and a holocaust denier.