Reality Check
How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future
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Narrated by:
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Darren Stephens
About this listen
The battles over evolution, climate change, childhood vaccinations, and the causes of AIDS, alternative medicine, oil shortages, population growth, and the place of science in our country - all are reaching a fevered pitch. Many people and institutions have exerted enormous efforts to misrepresent or flatly deny demonstrable scientific reality to protect their nonscientific ideology, their power, or their bottom line. To shed light on this darkness, Donald R. Prothero explains the scientific process and why society has come to rely on science not only to provide a better life but also to reach verifiable truths no other method can obtain. He describes how major scientific ideas that are accepted by the entire scientific community (evolution, anthropogenic global warming, vaccination, the HIV cause of AIDS, and others) have been attacked with totally unscientific arguments and methods. Prothero argues that science deniers pose a serious threat to society, as their attempts to subvert the truth have resulted in widespread scientific ignorance, increased risk of global catastrophes, and deaths due to the spread of diseases that could have been prevented.
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Short and unfocused, but often quite interesting.
- By Alan on 06-23-10
By: Spencer Wells
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Know This
- Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments
- By: John Brockman
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Dan John Miller
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientific developments radically alter our understanding of the world. Whether it's technology, climate change, health research, or the latest revelations of neuroscience, physics, or psychology, science has, as Edge editor John Brockman says, "become a big story, if not the big story". In that spirit this new addition to Edge.org's fascinating series asks a powerful and provocative question: What do you consider the most interesting and important recent scientific news?
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Pete and Repeat and Re-repeat
- By Daniel L on 02-25-18
By: John Brockman
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Climate Shock
- The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet
- By: Gernot Wagner, Martin L. Weitzman
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Wagner and Martin Weitzman explore in lively, clear terms the likely repercussions of a hotter planet, drawing on and expanding from work previously unavailable to general audiences. They show that the longer we wait to act, the more likely an extreme event will happen. A city might go underwater.
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Nuance, balance, risk management.
- By John Christens on 11-23-23
By: Gernot Wagner, and others
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On the Future
- Prospects for Humanity
- By: Martin Rees
- Narrated by: Martin Rees, Samuel West
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Humanity has reached a critical moment. Our world is unsettled and rapidly changing, and we face existential risks over the next century. Various outcomes - good and bad - are possible. Yet our approach to the future is characterized by short-term thinking, polarizing debates, alarmist rhetoric, and pessimism. In this short, exhilarating book, renowned scientist and best-selling author Martin Rees argues that humanity’s prospects depend on our taking a very different approach to planning for tomorrow.
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Science, the future, and great wisdom
- By Philomath on 10-29-18
By: Martin Rees
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Panic Attack
- Playing Politics with Science in the Fight Against COVID-19
- By: Nicole Saphier
- Narrated by: Nicole Saphier
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Medical doctor and national bestselling author of Make America Healthy Again Nicole Saphier reveals how politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic has baffled the public by creating distrust, fueling conspiracy theories, and making it harder for Americans to understand the necessary path forward. The pandemic has resulted in a failure of government, much of which is unavoidable in a unique disaster scenario. However, the rampant politicization of science has hopelessly muddied the water and knee-jerk anti-Trumpism made it all worse.
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Very disappointed
- By K. Green on 07-29-21
By: Nicole Saphier
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Future Babble
- Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway
- By: Dan Gardner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In Future Babble, award-winning journalist Dan Gardner presents landmark research debunking the whole expert prediction industry and explores our obsession with the future. The truth is that experts are about as accurate as dart-throwing monkeys.
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Future Babble Babble
- By Karen on 05-04-11
By: Dan Gardner
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Denialism
- How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives
- By: Michael Specter
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter has twice won the Global Health Council’s Excellence in Media Award, as well as the Science Journalism Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In Denialism, he fervently argues that people are turning away from new technologies and engaging in a kind of magical thinking that is hindering scientific progress.
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A compelling read
- By S on 05-17-11
By: Michael Specter
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The Real Global Warming Disaster
- Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?
- By: Christopher Booker
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 16 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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This original audiobook considers one of the most extraordinary scientific and political stories of our time: how in the 1980s a handful of scientists came to believe that mankind faced catastrophe from runaway global warming, and how today this has persuaded politicians to land us with what promises to be the biggest bill in history. Christopher Booker interweaves the science of global warming with that of its growing political consequences, showing how just when the politicians are threatening to change our Western way of life beyond recognition, the scientific evidence behind the global warming theory is being challenged like never before.
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The message made my blood boil
- By George on 10-14-14
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Giving the Devil His Due
- Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
- By: Michael Shermer
- Narrated by: Michael Shermer
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Who is the "Devil"? And what is he due? The devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have this for your own safety's sake, because his freedom is inextricably tied to your own. If he can be censored, why shouldn't you be censored? If we put barriers up to silence "unpleasant" ideas, what's to stop the silencing of any discussion? This book is a full-throated defense of free speech and open inquiry in politics, science, and culture by the New York Times best-selling author and skeptic Michael Shermer.
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Flawed Audio
- By Private on 04-10-20
By: Michael Shermer
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Deep Truth
- Igniting the Memory of Our Origin, History, Destiny, and Fate
- By: Gregg Braden
- Narrated by: Gregg Braden
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A new world is emerging before our eyes, while the unsustainable world of the past struggles to continue. Both worlds reflect the beliefs of our past. Both exist - but only for now. Which world do you choose? Best-selling author and visionary scientist Gregg Braden suggests that the hottest issues that divide us as families, nations, and civilizations-seemingly separate concerns such as war, terror, abortion, suicide, genocide, the death penalty, poverty, economic collapse, and nuclear war - are actually related.
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Good Information
- By David on 08-13-12
By: Gregg Braden
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Apocalypse Never
- Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All
- By: Michael Shellenberger
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed "billions of people are going to die", contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction.
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Environmentalist with integrity!
- By Wayne on 07-01-20
What listeners say about Reality Check
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anthony
- 07-06-14
A great book for how to identify pseudoscience
If you could sum up Reality Check in three words, what would they be?
thorough, interesting, surprising
What does Darren Stephens bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
the narrator has a easy to listen tone that does not annoy or bore.
Any additional comments?
This book is excellent for anyone interested in why people have unscientific and sometimes harmful beliefs.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Sunzal
- 07-11-14
Some interesting topics
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes...does a good job highlighting skeptics arguments
Who was your favorite character and why?
It's nonfiction...these questions don't make sense for a book like this
What about Darren Stephens’s performance did you like?
Nothing special
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
The chapter on vaccines
Any additional comments?
Pretty good...but very much an introduction for skeptics...nothing too advances
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2 people found this helpful
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- Andre
- 03-12-15
Interesting but very Left-Winged
Donald Prothero has an interesting way of not blatantly inserting his political stance in his writings while bashing right wingers and libertarians at the same time. I enjoyed this book overall. I decided to listen to it more than once because it was that interesting. I paid special attention to the chapters on global warming denial and the dangers of creationism. The chapter of world resources is also very effective as well. Unfortunately I'm not sure that the ones who need to hear this information will be the message.
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- Sandra
- 09-12-14
Reality Check is sure to piss you off
Would you listen to Reality Check again? Why?
No--only because I rarely re-read (or re-listen) to books twice--there are too many new books I haven't gotten to yet! :-)
That said, it is a good reference tool if I have to challenge a denier on any of the many topics that Prothero covered--so there's a good chance I will revisit parts of the book.
What other book might you compare Reality Check to and why?
"Merchants of Doubt" by James Conway and Naomi Oreskes. Prothero borrows heavily from this book in his first couple chapters.
What about Darren Stephens’s performance did you like?
It was smooth and unobtrusive. Stevens brought a gravitas to the book that often belied the snarky tone Prothero had. Eventually, however, you could occasionally hear some of Prothero's cynicism and snark creep into Stevens' voice.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
As the title of this review may have clued you in, it does have the ability to piss the reader off--whether you get angry at the science deniers that have infiltrated our culture, our media, and our legislatures, or whether you are an anti-vaxxer conspiracist, climate denier, or believer in homeopathy, Prothero's calling you “ignorant”, “crazy”, “quacks” or “foaming at the mouth loonies”, or whether you are tired of the name-calling in our civil discourse, there is something in "Reality Checks" that is sure to raise the hackles on your neck.
Any additional comments?
Prothero covers lots of ground in this book, with chapters devoted to evolution, tobacco, climate change, vaccines to HIV, the SDI (or Star Wars) Missile Defense System, acid rain, ozone depletion, creationism, population growth, alternative medicines and astronomy, and other advocates of "junk science."
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4 people found this helpful
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- Teresa
- 07-21-14
Science vs Pseudoscience
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes I would recommend this book to a friend because it is very interesting and with her holding a B.A. in Anthropology she would eat this up as they teach evolution in college.
Would you be willing to try another book from Donald R. Prothero? Why or why not?
I think this book was all over the place. Too much back and forth but that doesn't take away the fact that it was an interesting book.
What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
Science is based on methods and theories and pseudoscience is everything else? I think that's what I got from this book. I heard multiple references to science versus creationism. I can agree with what the author said about the Cambrian Explosion but not necessarily the fact that creationists haven't done their homework.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
An unbiased look at both.
Any additional comments?
I received the audiobook free of charge in exchange for an unbiased review.
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2 people found this helpful
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- K. A. Garman
- 06-22-19
this narrator is terrible
a book like this lives or dies based on the narrator. with no "story" to carry it, a bad narrator ruins a lot of good, impressive facts, quickly. this is good information delivered terribly. i couldn't finish it. one more credit wasted on a bad narrator.
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