As I intend to dispute the entire thesis on which this little book rests, I should say at the outset that it is one of the best short contributions to an important argument I have ever read. Cleanly and crisply written, entertaining and clear, and packed with factual ammunition, Counterknowledge makes the ideal companion for any huntsman minded to go shooting down silly ideas.
And Damian Thompson bags a whole cartload of them. Idiotic 9/11 theories, religious nuttery and creationism, Da Vinci Code-style false history, and homeopathy and ‘alternative’ medicine of every sort, fall flapping to the ground: victims of Thompson’s arsenal of information, unsparing logic and clear aim. There is a chuckle on almost every page as yet another supposed ‘true fact’ is exposed as anything but.
Yet I have three serious objections: not to the wealth of truths and truth contained here, but to the theoretical structure on which Thompson hangs his study.
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