Skip to main content

Is this Wi-fi Organic? - Dave Farina ****

After expressing some doubts about one of 'Professor Dave's videos it only seemed fair to take a look at his book - and I was pretty much sold on this 2021 publication by the title - but it turned out to be considerably more than I expected. I had assumed it would be a book poking fun at ignorant pseudoscientific ideas, but in reality the biggest parts of it are solid and entirely serious introductions to chemistry, biochemistry and energy (plus a touch of quantum physics).

The reason for this eclectic mix is that Dave Farina feels that they provide the knowledge foundation required to counter much online woo, whether it's about things 'not containing chemicals', so-called alternative medicines or the random use of the word 'quantum' to try to make a treatment that is nothing more than a placebo seem more scientifically based.

In between the basic science chapters we do get into the dodgy claims, also taking on, for example, that marketing term 'organic' and various other unlikely ways scientific terms are misused (sadly we never do encounter that organic wi-fi). Farina emphasises the ridiculous distinction between 'natural' and 'synthetic' in chemical terms, pointing out the many dangers of nature and the fact that a chemical with identical structure is the same thing whether it is natural or synthetic in origin. He also does an effective job of demolishing the idea that there can be a product or treatment that does a detox.

Taking on all these examples of pseudoscience and 'natural'-based marketing is a well trodden path, but what's novel here is providing a fair amount of straight science to accompany it - I was particularly pleased to see the chemistry section, as the subject is woefully under-represented in popular science.

What I'm less sure about, sadly, is whether this will change any minds. You have to be interested in science to read those science sections, and Farina's regular suggestion that no sensible person would fall for alternative therapies and their ilk is unlikely to win over current believers. The weakest part of the book is when he oversimplifies the history of science. For example, he describes alchemy as pseudoscience, where it is the ancestor of chemistry with considerable overlap by the time you get to Robert Boyle. For that matter, Farina is (rightly) very positive about Isaac Newton's work, without pointing out the considerable time he put into alchemy.

This book is probably preaching to the converted - but it will do a very useful job for those who feel that pseudoscience is nonsense, but lack the science knowledge to back up their assertion.

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Antigravity Enigma - Andrew May ****

Antigravity - the ability to overcome the pull of gravity - has been a fantasy for thousands of years and subject to more scientific (if impractical) fictional representation since H. G. Wells came up with cavorite in The First Men in the Moon . But is it plausible scientifically?  Andrew May does a good job of pulling together three ways of looking at our love affair with antigravity (and the related concept of cancelling inertia) - in science fiction, in physics and in pseudoscience and crankery. As May points out, science fiction is an important starting point as the concept was deployed there well before we had a good enough understanding of gravity to make any sensible scientific stabs at the idea (even though, for instance, Michael Faraday did unsuccessfully experiment with a possible interaction between gravity and electromagnetism). We then get onto the science itself, noting the potential impact on any ideas of antigravity that come from the move from a Newtonian view of a...
Post a Comment
Read more

The World as We Know It - Peter Dear ***

History professor Peter Dear gives us a detailed and reasoned coverage of the development of science as a concept from its origins as natural philosophy, covering the years from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. inclusive If that sounds a little dry, frankly, it is. But if you don't mind a very academic approach, it is certainly interesting. Obviously a major theme running through is the move from largely gentleman natural philosophers (with both implications of that word 'gentleman') to professional academic scientists. What started with clubs for relatively well off men with an interest, when universities did not stray far beyond what was included in mathematics (astronomy, for instance), would become a very different beast. The main scientific subjects that Dear covers are physics and biology - we get, for instance, a lot on the gradual move away from a purely mechanical views of physics - the reason Newton's 'action at a distance' gravity caused such ...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's On You - Nick Chater and George Loewenstein *****

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...
Post a Comment
Read more