SCIENCE AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD: A Critique of Unreason and Academic Nonsense. H. Sidky. Thanks to a combination of postmodernist academics who discount truth or reliable knowledge and a Trump presidency that fomented falsehoods and lies, Americans now live in a post-truth era characterized by fake news, weaponized lies, alternative facts, conspiracy theories, magical thinking, and irrationalism, says anthropologist Sidky. In this timely work, he examines how French philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida, and Latour fomented this forceful assault on science and truth and how Donald Trump, right-wing populists, and religious extremists then took this irrationality into whole new realms of public policy. Sidky brings new insights to science studies, the Sokal hoax, American intellectuals’ efforts to delegitimize science, relativism, how we know what we know, and postmodern anthropology. Chapters of special interest to our readers include “The Problem of Pseudoscience in Post-Truth America” and “Paranormal and Theistic Anthropology.” Rowman & Littlefield/Lexington, 2021, 240 pp., $100.

 

 

THE LIFE-CHANGING SCIENCE OF DETECTING BULLSHIT. John V. Petrocelli. This book is the ultimate consumer protection guide—how to protect ourselves from the bullshit, utter nonsense, lies, distortions, conspiracy thinking, and disinformation swirling all about us. John Petrocelli is an experimental psychologist and professor (at Wake Forest University) who studies bullshit, and his book is clear and blunt: If we are to avoid falling victim to the BS, we must learn how to recognize and decisively bury it using scientific reasoning and critical thinking to seek evidence and truth. St. Martin’s Press, 2021, 326 pp., $28.99.