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The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake

Author	Steven Novella, Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella, Evan Bernstein
Language	English
Subject	Scientific skepticism
Published	October 2, 2018
Publisher	Grand Central Publishing
Pages	512
ISBN	978-1-5387-6053-6

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake is a 2018 book written by Steven Novella and co-authored by the rest of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast hosts, ie. Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella and Evan Bernstein. The book is an all-encompassing guide to skeptical thinking. Richard Wiseman calls it "the perfect primer for anyone who wants to separate fact from fiction."

The book became a USA Today bestseller.

• 
  Steve Novella, 2011
• 
  Evan Bernstein, 2015
• 
  Cara Santa Maria, 2014
• 
  Bob Novella, 2017
• 
  Jay Novella, 2015

Signing of the book 'The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake' by Steven Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Evan Bernstein and Jay Novella during QED Conference in Manchester, UK.

Plans for a book

In a 2017 interview, SGU team member Evan Bernstein announced in an interview for Skeptical Inquirer with Susan Gerbic that the team had collaborated on a book, and it was expected to be available in the fall of 2018. The book, titled The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake, became available for pre-order in early 2018, and was released by Grand Central Publishing on October 2, 2018.

The Amazon.com pre-order advertisement included the following information:

“ In this tie-in to their incredibly popular "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe" podcast, Steven Novella, MD, along with "Skeptical Rogues" Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella, and Evan Bernstein will explain the tenets of skeptical thinking and debunk some of the biggest scientific myths, fallacies and conspiracy theories (Anti-vaccines, homeopathy, UFO sightings, etc.) [...] It covers essential critical thinking skills, as well as giving insight into how your brain works and how to avoid common pitfalls in thinking... ”

Outline of the book

The book contains five sections.

Section 1: Core Concepts Every Skeptic Should Know

Biggest section, covering almost half of the book. It is meant to be a selection of core concepts of scientific skepticism.

The topics discussed are:

• Neuropsychological Humility and Mechanisms of Deception
  • scientific skepticism,
  • memory fallibility and false memory syndrome,
  • fallibility of perception,
  • pareidolia,
  • hyperactive agency detection,
  • hypnagogia,
  • ideomotor effect.
• Metacognition
  • Dunning-Kruger effect,
  • motivated reasoning,
  • arguments and logical fallacies,
  • cognitive biases and heuristics,
  • confirmation bias,
  • appeal to antiquity,
  • appeal to nature,
  • fundamental attribution error,
  • anomaly hunting,
  • data mining,
  • coincidence.
• Science and pseudoscience
  • methodological naturalism and its critics,
  • postmodernism,
  • Occam's Razor,
  • pseudoscience of the Demarcation Problem,
  • denialism,
  • p-hacking and other research foibles,
  • conspiracy theories,
  • witch hunts,
  • placebo effects,
  • anecdote,
• Iconic Cautionary Tales from History
  • the "Clever Hans" effect,
  • the Hawthorne effect,
  • cold reading,
  • free energy,
  • quantum woo,
  • homunculus theory,
  • pyramid scheme.

Section 2: Adventures in Skepticism

This section contains "personal adventures" the author and coauthors had in using skeptical thinking. This section includes the following chapters:

• Motivated Reasoning About Genetically Modified Organisms (Steve Novella)
• Dennis Lee and Free Energy (Perry DeAngelis, former host of SGU podcast)
• Holly-woo (Cara Santa Maria)
• The Singularity (Bob Novella)
• The Warrens and Ghost Hunting (Evan Bernstein)
• Loose Thinking About Loose Change (Jay Novella)

Section 3: Skepticism and the Media

This section discusses common problems with journalism and shows examples of science journalism gone wrong. This section includes the following chapters:

• Fake News
• False Balance
• Science Journalism
• Enter the Matrix
• Microbiomania
• Reporting Epigenetics

Section 4: Death by Pseudoscience

Examples of harm, sometimes fatal, coming from pseudoscience. The section includes the following chapters:

• Death by Naturopathy
• Exorcism: Medieval Beliefs Yield Medieval Results
• Death by Denial
• Suffer the Children

Section 5: Changing Yourself and the World

Summary of skepticism and suggestions regarding applying scientific skepticism in reader's life. The section contains the chapter Being Skeptical, epilogue, acknowledgments and references.

Reception

The book received very positive reviews. Goodreads.com website mean rating was 4.88/5 (out of 422 ratings) as of January 2019.

Publishers Weekly reviewed the book, stating:

“ In plain English and cogent prose, Novella makes skepticism seem mighty, necessary, and accessible all at once... Empowering and illuminating, this thinker’s paradise is an antidote to spreading anti-scientific sentiments. Readers will return to its ideas again and again. ”

Neil deGrasse Tyson's review says:

“ Thorough, informative, and enlightening, The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe inoculates you against the frailties and shortcomings of human cognition. If this book does not become required reading for us all, we may well see modern civilization unravel before our eyes. ”

Bill Nye wrote:

“ In this age of real and fake information, your ability to reason, to think in scientifically skeptical fashion, is the most important skill you can have. Read The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe; get better at reasoning. And if this claim about the importance of reason is wrong, The Skeptics' Guide will help you figure that out, too. ”

The book was also reviewed by Rob Palmer on CSICOP webpage. He wrote:

“ Full disclosure: After my recent interview with Jay Novella for CSI online, I took the assignment to review this book with some trepidation. I am a long-time fan of the podcast, know all the rogues, and had extremely high expectations. I want this book to be successful, so if I was disappointed by it, and felt the need to be harsh, it would have been difficult to be honest in my evaluation. In that case, I think I would have passed the review task to someone else. Happily, that did not have to happen, as I was not disappointed at all. ”

Kirkus Reviews contained the following summary:

“ Presented as “one giant inoculation against bad science, deception, and faulty thinking,” the book succeeds superbly. ”

Michael Mann, a professor in Penn State University, mentioned in the blurb the book's similarity to The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan:

“ In his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World, the great Carl Sagan prophesied a descent into superstition and ignorance. Well, that world has arrived. Fortunately, Steve Novella and his coauthors are here to help us navigate it with critical thinking and scientifically appropriate skepticism, along the way exposing the anti-science and pseudoscience so prevalent in our public discourse today. ”