Review of 'How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
An easy book to write - lots of examples of how corporations, governments and individuals are spreading nonsense and outright lies to further their cause, sometimes deliberately, sometimes because they believe what they say. Paxman does an OK job of debunking individually but does not even touch the important questions such as "is it really conquering the world" (i.e. becoming more prevalent) and "what can we do about it, if anything, as a whole rather than by debunking individual nonsense. Studies have shown that it takes a lot of repetition of truth to dislodge a lie once it has been heard and, by default, believed. So we need to stop it before it becomes widespread rather than spread the evidence afterwards.
