Shawn Lawrence OttoRecensioni

Shawn Otto writes passionately in support of science and science education. The War on Science and why it occurs is discussed in this book, and it is quite enlightening. It is also quite frustrating seeing as how there is so little that I can do personally. At the end of the book are suggestions for quelling the war on science, so there is that. In the end, it is up to the American people to enlighten themselves, since an educated populace is essential for democracy to work.

My original The War on Science audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

In an emergency, medics are taught to look for those that are not speaking among those who are screaming for help. In a similar light, we may be missing those most important scientific voices because they can’t be heard above the din of media attention some unscientific work gets. In the audiobook, The War on Science: Who's Waging It, Why It Matters, What We Can Do About It, by Shawn Otto, it’s clear that the issue is complex and he doesn’t shy away from the whole story. In this 20- hour volume, which resembles an eloquent offering from the Great Courses line-up, we get the full story from beginning to end, that we as a country, are often in the dark.

The volume couldn’t be timelier as the new administration, whether you are for or against, puts stops on the dissemination of information from the USDA, the CDC, and EPA. Before tackling the current issues, it makes sense to look back at the rise and decline of our leader's desire for scientific evidence.

Who would want to listen to twenty hours of content? Scientists. policymakers, and those with a vested interest in science and government that want the free and transparent distribution of information. The writing is at a very high and sometimes inaccessible level for many and the sheer depth of research would normally make it difficult to digest. However, the logic is sound, the arguments clear, and well documented. The expectation for many would be to listen from beginning to end, but with multiple parts, chronological movement from a presidential policy of one administration to another, it becomes difficult to follow if in that way. It is really, I believe, a great catalyst for upper-level undergraduate or graduate classroom discussion. The book provides a great return on investment for the single credit Audible charges.

About the Narrator

Peter Berkrot is a veteran narrator with a few hundred titles on Audible.com alone. I first listened to him with The Design of Everyday Things, a classic from Donald A. Norman and his voice works especially well for non-fiction. With his readings of the 30-hour Untold History of the United States and other classics, it’s not just a veteran narrator, but a key fit.

Audiobook was provided for review by the publisher.

A good book, not a great book. There is much knowledge in here to be gleaned, and quite an excellent history of the why of American ignorance, but it plods at times and there are several 20-30 page swaths that are not easy reading. In the hands of a non-scientist or non-religious person, the information would have been easier to digest. What's interesting about that is the book explains how scientists have such a tough time explaining themselves, an ironic fault with the book itself! Surprising is a lack of hopefulness. Hopefulness would have been better. The author has much to learn about delivering a message.

Book Review & Giveaway: Did you see the Oscar nominated House of Sand and Fog when it came to movie theaters? Shawn Lawrence Otto was its award-winning screenwriter. He’s also an award-winning non-fiction author who’s just written a debut thriller, Sins of Our Fathers. It deals with the uneasy relationship between Native American reservations and the communities around them, a predatory banking industry, and one man’s rapid descent into a hell of his own making. It’s a complex story that may find Mr. Otto racking up even more awards before all is said and done. This is our first review for a non-profit publishing house that specializes in transformative literature, and Sins of Our Fathers certainly qualifies for that moniker. We’re excited to be hosting a giveaway for a copy that someone will win at http://popcornreads.com/?p=8019½

The descriptive passages--of landscapes, buildings, and skies--and general pacing of the story are quite well done. The characters, however--the greedy win-at-all-cost banker, the not-quite-whole Ojibwa businessman, his rebellious son, a heavy drinking Ojibwa woman, and the gambling-addicted embezzling banker trying to save a failed career and marriage--are too stereotyped, too thinly drawn, with insufficient depth of motivation, to be human. The outcome is too predictable, almost cliched. In many ways, the novel reads like a story for a movie, which it could readily become. The novel bears the formative hallmarks of a competent writer, who, when he finds the right story, could see widespread success in fiction to match his success in non-fiction.

Sins of Our Fathers by Shawn Lawrence Otto is a story of greed and business. Set on and around the Native American reservations in Minnesota, it is also a story about the racial divide, prejudice, and discrimination. It is the story of one man seeking to reclaim his life and his decision between doing the right thing or the expedient thing. Shawn Lawrence Otto's writing is beautifully visual.

Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2014/12/sins-of-our-fathers.html

Reviewed based on a copy received through a publisher’s giveaway

Good book about the debate with science. He focuses on the history of ideas, and has some interesting policy suggestions.

This book is a jumbled, messy look at critical thinking and the cult of ignorance in American culture. The author seems at times to be trying for the Templeton prize, and at other times to be trying to appease everyone, and then he will turn around and say something profound and insightful. There certainly are some gems in this book, but it is trying to read, especially when the author manages to muck up the history of science early in the book by assuming that the Scopes trial represented a win for science, and not understanding that, in fact, evolution was quietly removed from science for several decades following that famous battle. Perhaps this is the reason why so many of his conclusions and proposed solutions seem forced and unintelligible, at least to someone who spends every day actually facing students in the front of a science classroom. The fact that this individual does not do that rings through every page, as he lectures scientists on how science should be taught and clearly has no clue how it is being taught. He also does not appear to have met the average American (if such an animal exists), and gets all or most of his information about this particular group from polls and internet searches. Very little of his information moves beyond anecdotal, and for the few actual facts he cites, there are multiple possible interpretations, and the one he adopts is often a stretch. Overall, a disappointing, rambling work. There are many who have covered the subject much better.½

Rating: 4.9* of five

The Publisher Says: "Whenever the people are well informed,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “they can be trusted with their own government.” But what happens in a world dominated by complex science? Are the people still well-enough informed to be trusted with their own government? And with less than 2 percent of Congress with any professional background in science, how can our government be trusted to lead us in the right direction?

Will the media save us? Don't count on it. In early 2008, of the 2,975 questions asked the candidates for president just six mentioned the words "global warming" or "climate change," the greatest policy challenge facing America. To put that in perspective, three questions mentioned UFOs.

Today the world’s major unsolved challenges all revolve around science. By the 2012 election cycle, at a time when science is influencing every aspect of modern life, antiscience views from climate-change denial to creationism to vaccine refusal have become mainstream.
Faced with the daunting challenges of an environment under siege, an exploding population, a falling economy and an education system slipping behind, our elected leaders are hard at work ... passing resolutions that say climate change is not real and astrology can control the weather.

Shawn Lawrence Otto has written a behind-the-scenes look at how the government, our politics, and the media prevent us from finding the real solutions we need. Fool Me Twice is the clever, outraged, and frightening account of America’s relationship with science—a relationship that is on the rocks at the very time we need it most.

My Review: The most unnerving reality in today's social, political, and educational reality is that science, which you are benefiting from this very second as you read this review on the Internet, is underfunded, undertaught, and underapprecitaed by the people of the USA and their political overlords. The reason for this is that an insane religious know-nothingism has infected the Body Politic with a conservative (in the worst possible meaning of that never good term) resistance to accepting reality as it is, instead of how one fancies it should be. This book quantifies the horrors on their way down the pike as this horrifying metastatic stupidity continues unchecked and even promoted by the small-souled fear-mongering Yahoos, in the original Swiftian sense, who shout and rail and spew on Fox "News" and the related echo chambers.

This book is exactly as tendentious as my book report is. If you don't already agree with its premise, then you're unlikely to consider picking it up. Which is a pity, in my view. For those of us who already agree, this acts either as a call to arms, or a horribly depressing reminder of how the New Dark Ages have already begun. For make no mistake: Stupidity has more gravity than intelligence, and hate has more than enlightenment. Science has proven too many times that gravity always wins for me to have any hope that Good will triumph over Willful Ignorance.

Please prove me wrong. Read this book and get energized to fight the Yahoos. Please.