IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023 - 22

Book Review
Book Review
How to Talk to a Science Denier:
Conversations With Flat Earthers,
Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy
Reason-Lee McIntyre (Cambridge,
MA, USA: MIT Press, 2021, 264 pp.)
Reviewed by Jacob Ossar
Independent Scholar
Brookline, MA 02446 USA
 In Book I of Plato's Republic, Socrates narrates
preparing to go home from a festival when he is playfully
" arrested " by an acquaintance and told that
because he is outnumbered he has no choice but to
stay. " Why, is there not left, " said I, " the alternative
of our persuading you that you ought to let us go? "
" But could you persuade us, " said he, " if we refused
to listen? " Here, at the beginning of the Western philosophical
tradition, we encounter a perennial problem:
how to deal with those who refuse even to listen
to reason, let alone allow themselves to be moved by
it. In How to Talk to a Science Denier, Lee McIntyre, a
research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History
of Science at Boston University, addresses one
manifestation of this problem: science denial.
McIntyre explores what causes people to become
science deniers, why they remain so even in the face
of rationally compelling arguments against their
views, and how one might nevertheless woo them
away from their science denial. After opening with
an account of attending a flat Earth convention and
speaking with the participants, McIntyre focuses on
weightier and more timely genres of science denial,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2023.3245689
Date of current version: 7 March 2023.
22
0278-0097/23©2023 IEEE
especially those who deny the reality of climate
change. He argues that all forms of science denial
spring from a common set of sources, and therefore
each calls for a similar response. Perhaps surprisingly,
given McIntyre's background, the responses
he champions reside squarely in the realm of psychology.
His book is not a philosophical treatise;
epistemological issues take a backseat to practical
and interpersonal ones. McIntyre summarizes and
explains the relevant psychological research and
then, in largely anecdotal chapters, models how one
might apply it in practice.
In the book's opening chapter, McIntyre describes
attending a flat Earth convention. He recounts his
conversations with attendees there, investigating
what motivated them to adopt this fringe worldview
and walking us through his unsuccessful attempts to
get them to abandon it. After showing us what science
denial looks like in practice, McIntyre moves on
to the analytic heart of the book, where he describes
the key characteristics of science denial. McIntyre
relies heavily here on social science research,
which he cites in copious endnotes. According to
this research, science denial has five key characteristics:
1) cherry-picking evidence; 2) belief in conspiracy
theories; 3) reliance on fake experts (and
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2023

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