TL;DR: Read if you enjoy witnessing applied rationality.
In their book from 2008, Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst went through the evidence for and against a large range of alternative, a.k.a. complementary, health interventions. And wowza, was that an interesting journey!
The first chapter, titled "How do you determine the truth?" effectively fulfills its purpose. I wish my whole family had read and understood this chapter ;-)
Chapters 2-5 each take a close look at a well-known alternative treatment, describing its history and (postulated) way of working, then turning to the evidence and drawing conclusions from that. That is, the authors apply the standards from Chapter 1 to a selection of treatments.
Chapter 6, the last... (read 393 more words →)
Thanks for the review! It got me to buy and then devour the book. It was a great read; entertaining and providing a range of useful mental models. Applying McRaney's amalgam Street Epistemology is hard work, but makes for exceedingly interesting and very friendly conversations about touchy subjects - I am happy to have this tool in my life now.
Thank you for the nice post!
In the spirit of https://xkcd.com/208/, I'd like to share a completely imaginary story of how this might come in handy:
I open the door and yell "Hoooney, I'm home earl--heeey! What is going on here?"
"Uh oh, nothing, sweetheart," says the flustered, sweaty, naked honey. The door at the other end of the house slams loudly.
"Hmm," my mind says, "it sure does look like someone is having an affair. The third party left through the kitchen, leaving my partner there in a bit of a bind."
I struggle to contain the rising jealousy in my chest. Before it gets the better of me, I remind myself of the old rationality trick: Try... (read more)