Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

A very bad book. First, the author claims to be an atheist so that his rants against the so-called New Atheists will look more "reasonable" than similar attacks from the religious. But he reveals that no, actually he isn't an atheist, which involves the rejection of the supernatural and not just of religious fundamentalism. He also justifies his personal attacks on the late Chris Hitchens (not on the man's views, with which he barely engages, but the man) now that Hitchens can't respond, by saying Hitchens made fun of dead right-wing fundamentalists, so he can do the same with Hitch. Putting aside those right-wing fundamentalists are the same people the author insists he also opposes, since when was "he did it first!" considered an intellectual argument? But that is all minor compared to the real problem of the book: it attacks an entirely straw man version of science that few scientists (including those who are "New Atheists") would recognize, and insists (wrongly) that science is some threat to beauty and imagination. All of which is rather obviously utter nonsense. Science is a means of determinging fact (always on a provisional basis), a collective enterprise designed to minimize individual human failings in analyzing the nature of reality. But facts are not the enemy of anything but ignorance. The overall impression I get is of a professor seeing more money going to the science faculty than his English department, and determining from that that science is the enemy of humanity. If there was a negative rating, I'd give that, but as it is, I suppose I shall have to settle for one star. Go read some Carl Sagan instead.