Notes on Chris Mooney's book

Last month, when commenting on something Chris Mooney had written, I asked, "Can this really be the same Chris Mooney who wrote The Republican War on Science, which I heard such wonderful things about?" I decided after making this remark I had to sit down and read the thing. While I'm glad he took the trouble to document political abuses of science, the book left a bad taste in my mouth. The reason for this is explained very well by a comment I found via Facebook's "Books" application:

Interesting, but I wish they'd actually give more detail into the science on each side of the issues. Some of the "republican" points actually sounded sort of valid, and I wish I had the data they had to say that they weren't. And yes, I could scrub the notes and find the original papers, but as an author, he really should have laid out a better argument in the text itself.

Though Mooney has a couple of instances where he clearly caught his targets with their pants down, making simple contrary-to-fact assertions, most of the time he just relies on the reader to trust him that he's getting the science right. I'm willing to do that because I feel I have a pretty good idea of who's trustworthy and who isn't on scientific matters, but people across the political perspective from Mooney will have a different view. It's a worrisome foreshadowing of the disregard for evidence he showed in what he's done on framing, and a sign of why the approach he advocates doesn't even make practical sense.

Final verdict: Three stars