Abstract

This book is about the abuse of scientific authority and the spread of pseudoscience into almost all facets of our everyday lives. Readers learn how popular sciences of everything from dating and economics, to voting and artificial intelligence have radically changed the world we live in. No part of modern society remains untouched by the abuse of popular scientific authority, which played a role in the 2008 economic crisis, the failure to predict the rise of Trump, and various other major tensions in our society. But this book also offers readers a way out of the culture of scientism. The hermeneutic or interpretive approach promises to free ordinary people from pseudoscience and helps them become better readers of both the many claims to science around us as well as the cultural spaces we inhabit and help to create.