The Stickler's Guide to Science in the Age of Misinformation

October 4, 2021
Software engineer Bouchard, a self-described “stickler” and designer of the 1980s computer game The Oregon Trail, analyzes 13 popular science phrases and the misconceptions they promote in this accessible if uneven survey. The problem, he argues, is that the shorthand used by the media to talk about science too often oversimplifies things to the point of inaccuracy. Bouchard offers a corrective, providing context for such concepts as the “ascent of man” image (inaccurate based on the current understanding of evolution), “superfoods” (a marketing term, not a scientific one), and the notion that people are either right-brained or left-brained (a myth). But readers expecting a hard-hitting attack on quackery will be disappointed by Bouchard’s mild quibbles with such phrases as “the blueprint of life” (“list of ingredients” would more accurately describe DNA) and “the five senses” (by his count, there are nine). He’s at his best on the issue of global warming, where the stakes are clear: even as life on Earth is threatened by it, it can be interpreted in a way that “allows you to say that the entire concept of global warming is hogwash.” Readers interested in an breezy pop science primer will find it, but those looking for a serious consideration of the dangers of misinformation will be better served elsewhere.