ANTI-SCIENCE AND THE ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY: Defending Reason in a Free Society. Michael J. Thompson and Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker, editors. Thirteen original essays by political scientists, hard scientists (e.g., Alan Sokal and Lee Smolin), philosophers of science (Barbara Forrest, Phillip Kitcher, Michael Ruse), and other scholars. They examine antiscience and argue that respect for science is essential for a healthy democracy. Divided into four sections: “Reforging the Link Between Science and Democracy”; “Science’s Democratic Dimensions”; “Perverted Science, Disfigured Democracy”; and “The Revenge of Anti-Science.” The antiscience the editors and authors consider is not just about global warming, vaccines, creationism, GMOs, and other specific fields but also about science itself; they condemn postmodernist relativisms’ damaging campaign alleging that science is “elitist” or a mask for social power and influence. The “collective thesis” of the essays, in the editors’ words, is that “democracy is withering due in no small part to our culture’s drifting away from the scientific mindset and the erosion of reason that results from it.” Prometheus Books, 2018, 304 pp., $26.
