Two book lists

My list would include "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman and "Supply Side Economics" by Arthur Laffer.

Geez, if Behe's on the list, the collected works of Sylvia Browne certainly should be.

Are you implying Kinsey's work was scientific? Wow.

"Atlas Shrugged" and related Rand nonsense "novels".
Any book on phrenology.
Hundreds of papal encyclicals.

Ayn Rand hasn't even been mentioned here. How is that possible? The most egotistical and yet respected by so many person to still be popular. Some even call her a "philosopher". She's frighteningly influential.

The Discovery Institute blogged about this, and I blogged about their blog article (the blogosphere is rather incestuous):
Discovery Institute -- Plagiarism?

(.)(.)

Wingnuts usually confuse me, but list has me attempting to scratch my head without being able to locate it in space: exactly how is Discourse on Method detrimental to Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

Isn't it glaringly obvious that both lists omit any work that is explicitly religious?

Der Hexenhammer isn't explicitly religious? Although I must admit it is the height of hypocrisy to list it and not the Bible which laid the foundations for Hammer of the Witches. So we've got:

Malleus Maleficarum, Kramer and Sprenger
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Mein Kampf, Hitler
Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, A. Smith
The Bible
The Quoran
The Book Of Mormon
Dianetics, Hubbard

What for #10?

I nominate Pensées by Pascal. And, honestly, I think Augustine's De doctrina Christiana is far more pernicious then Dianetics (give Hubbard a millennium or so to sink in and it may well be as bad, but not yet).

The number one book has to be the Bible, it's caused more death, destruction and harm to the human race by several orders of magnitude over any other single work in the history of mankind. After that, it really stops being all that important, nothing else can compete in scope, even Mein Kampf comes in as an "also ran".

You seem to consider Adam Smith as the opposite of Marx.
It is not. In fact, if you read Adam Smith, which is something free market absolutists obviously haven't, you'd find that he's not one of them, and that Marx agreed with him more often than not.

Interpretation of Dreams by Freud.

Hal Lindsey's books.

Sartre, and his inspiration, Heidegger.

Of course the Bible and Koran, as well as anything that came from them.

Plato, who I sort of hate to include because he was brilliant, but he also fed us a lot of nonsense that became part of Xianity and Islam.

It's ridiculous to blame Machiavelli for telling it like it is. Same with Nietzsche and Hobbes. Descartes had enough screwy ideas, but had a lot of good ones as well. Descent of Man is not Darwin's best, yet not close to being worthy of being on such a list.

Communist Manifesto, yes, though "book" seems to be in question. And, are the Protocols really a book? Hitler sucks, of course.

Behe, forgotten in a decade or two, foiled at every turn. Bizarre to even think of his derivative junk for such a list. Dewey's not that bad. Mead, questionable, since I think it was one of those books so wrong only intellectuals could believe it--and then only for a few decades.

The lists are terrible. I'm sure that some highly influential and very bad, now forgotten, books could have been dredged up to make a real list.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

The Bible is missing from those lists

We need to include some woo on the list, i.e. Capra's The Tao of Physics or Zukav's The Dancing Wu Li Masters (or anything by Deepak Chopra).

Would someone care to explain why Adam Smith is there? I was under the impression that it kickstarted a lot of empirical work.

Not sure if this qualifies as "book", but how about the Prophecies of Nostradamus?
That crap still gets confused for "real"...

I am woefully uneducated. I know that Socrates and Plato each put forward the idea that the world around us is not the "real" world, that our senses don't "really" tell us anything important, and that to find Truth you have to look... in your heart. However, I don't know whether any particular work promotes this idea MORE than any of their others. Because of this, I can't give a title, and instead have to just suggest "the works of Socrates and Plato" as an entry to the list.

The Late Great Planet Earth? Best selling book of the 70s and eventually led to Left Behind. They themselves have been a horrible torture of literature.

What? The Prince? It seems that you fuck the world up only when you say the glaring truth.

Seriously, that book didn't impress me. It was just a big "D'UH." to me.

What, no Copernicus (or Bruno or Galileo)?

I was out of town for the weekend, and in the pile of mail waiting for me when I got home last night was a bulk mail brochure that appears to be promoting a return to geocentric cosmology! The headline of the piece is Have the Scientists Been Wrong for 400 Years?? I haven't studied it yet to determine whether it's some sort of joke, and I'm actually afraid to: If it's not a joke, I shudder to think how many times I'll need to bash my head against the wall.

Is it really right to include Marx, and not the odd Hegelian ideas that led to Marx?

How about Mao's rancid writings? I can't even name any without looking them up, but they sure screwed up China for decades. Quotations by Mao should be included in any real list. Lenin's writings, and anything by Stalin, would be worth considering.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

The Secret

PZ, if you really think that the only reason that Marx deserves ("maybe") to be on such a list is because "we're still living with the ideological struggle that it was part of", you really need to get out more...

And why exactly do you think that Adam Smith deserves serious consideration on a list of the top things that "screwed up the world"? As others have pointed out, one shouldn't be faulted for telling it like it is, especially when doing so helps overthrow centuries of truly dangerous myths and misconceptions that had caused untold amounts of misery.

Including "Mein Kampf" just shows the author never tried to read it. It a incoherent rambling that no one actually read. Yes, the ideas and the man behind it screwed the world over, but the book itself has the propagating power of wet cheese.

Mao's Red Book?

Gee, my choice would have included any of the Garfield anthologies. That cartoon cat has got to be one of the most evil creations to ever spring from a writer's brain. The insipidness of it burns the psyche. Irreparably.

#1 The Book of Bunny Suicides - Have you ever considered what a literal Screwed up World would look like? It would probably look like a stereotypical devils head...

#17
woefully uneducated indeed. try actually *reading* some of Plato's dialogues about Socrates--you are in for a wonderful treat.

They are full of the spirit of rational inquiry and joyful attacks on dogmatic nonsense. Yes, Plato propounded some dogmatic nonsense of his own now and then, but he generally arrived at it by honest if mistaken means: by trying to provide *arguments* about what follows from what; by examining *evidence* and seeing what it entails and what it contradicts; and by proposing *hypotheses* that attempt to explain and systematize as many of the natural phenomena as possible. He also earns points for having promoted the role of mathematics in natural science.

if you read nothing else, read the Euthyphro. it contains a classic exposition of the dilemma for theists who think that god creates the moral ordering by arbitrary fiat. plato is our eternal ally in the fight against the stupid theistic line that only god can provide a foundation for morality.

sure, there are offensive and wrong-headed bits in plato--it's a mistake to defer to him as an authority. (he's not the gospel--but then, neither is the gospel). but the ferment of ideas, the constant questioning, the exploration of possibilities, and the rational working out of consistent positions, all make him an inspiration to rational thinkers of all times. it's not for nothing that he was revered by the renaissance.

i'd also speak in defense of adam smith's 'wealth of nations', which, as noted above, is nothing like the right-wing screed it is thought to be. 'the theory of moral sentiments' is also very good.

but to add a few:

mao's little red book.

and for anti-intellectual, anti-scientific bunkum, i'd put pirzig's "zen & the art etc." right up there with ayn rand.

THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY by Robert James Waller deserves inclusion.

I think that some books deserve to be called "death warrants." I define a death warrant as a book or tract that provides a rational for mass murder, and this is its primary significance. (Otherwise, the holy books of all major faiths would qualify.) While I have only seen the term used for Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the most famous death warrant is Mein Kampf.

- Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger

- On the Jews and Their Lies by Martin Luther

- The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels

- Milestones by Sayyid Qutb (inspiration to Zawahiri and modern militant Islamism in general)

- Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene by Erwin Baur, Eugen Fischer and Fritz Lenz

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/documentary/hadamar/racism.html

This last book is quite obscure today, but it deserves more notoriety.

The Oral History of the Human Genetics Project (a John Hopkins & UCLA project) describes the book as "the bible of human genetics instruction in Europe and the U.S., as well as the handbook to the Nazi eugenics program." The German book went through several editions from 1921 to 1941, including a 1931 American edition which received mainly good reviews in US science journals.

The book was read by Adolf Hitler while serving his prison sentence for the Beer Hall Putsch, and it made a profound impression on him. Lenz, who became a Nazi Party member and served as Germany's first professor of racial hygiene (Robert Proctor, 'Racial Hygiene'), boasted that one of his earlier papers prefigured National Socialist policy. Lenz made his early reputation studying mixed race German-Africans in the Namibian colony. Fischer was one of the mentors of Josef Mengele.

A local library has a copy of Human Heredity and Racial Hygiene, which I studied. My notes on the book:

Baur explains that hindrances to natural selection are injurious to human genetic quality; such weakening of selection occurs under conditions of civilization.

Lenz asserts that German-African "half-breeds" are inferior to "negroes." Only the worst representatives of each race would mate and marry across racial lines.

Lenz's 'Near Eastern race' includes Jews, Greeks, and Armenians. Lenz writes that they excel in the control of their fellow man rather than the control over nature and so are very proficient in commerce. According to Lenz, Near Easterners are adept at understanding the emotions of others, which can be used to sadistically enjoy their suffering. Lenz cites Shakespeare's Shylock as an example. Lenz observes that many Jews resemble non-Jewish Europeans, so he concludes that Jews are a race (within the Near Eastern race) defined more by mental than by physical attributes.

Despite their high intellects, Lenz asserts that Near Easterners are inferior to "Nordics" in imagination and creativity. He believes that all great world empires were founded by Nordics.

Lenz warns that civilized people are "squandering" their biological heritage that has given rise to their mental abilities.

Fritz Lenz quotes from Human Heredity:

"race ... is the first and indispensable condition of all civilization."

"Our ethnological studies must lead us, not to arrogance, but to action, to eugenics."

I think that what made Human Heredity so noxious was not that it was extreme by the standards of racist and eugenicist tracts of the time - it was not - but that it was so respected by the scientific community. It helped give Nazi ideology a scientific aura, allowing German doctors and biologists to believe that they were following a rational and benevolent program. The first biomedical implementation of a mass murder operation in Nazi Germany was of the handicapped, those whom the soft conditions of civilization had allowed to live.

I would hesitate to put every holy book in the same list. The Tao Te Ching is pretty benign, as far as those things go. Confucious's works might fit as well, although I have not read them.

But yes, as I was wincing my way down that first list, I kept wondering where the Bible was as well.

What? No Dan Brown?

(Sorry.)

I can't take a list like this seriously if it doesn't have Mao's Red Book, the Bible and the Koran. Those three books seem to have pretty much maximized their potential, and I mean that in the worst possible way.

Books don't kill people, people kill people.

NM @11,

absolutely. Smith didn't say what a lot of wingnuts think he said (which is "[Insert most recent nonsensical and self-serving Republican talking point about the economy HERE]"). If nothing else, he was no fan of corporations.

Machiavelli's inclusion I find interesting, because wingnut intellectuals (at least, those of Straussian persuasion) loves them some Niccolò M. Of course, it would be perfectly consistent with their beliefs for them to revere The Prince and at the same time approve of their downmarket noisemaker comrades warning Cletus and Brandine that the book is Dangerous and Bad.

Books don't kill people, people kill people.

Clearly, you don't remember the Great Ravenous Book Rampage of aught-three. . . .

Karl Marx would have been horrified to see Communism tried out in places without a long tradition of democratic capitalism; he was hoping that the UK would be the first post-capitalist state. The whole frickin' point of Capital (to use the English translation of the title) is that societies evolve in stages from feudalism to capitalism to socialism or communism. It doesn't work to leapfrog from feudalism to socialism.

Meanwhile, as for truly evil books that have seriously damaged the public discourse in the US and thus had a negative effect on the world, I suggest the two books published under William E. Simon's name: A Time for Truth in 1978 (ghostwritten by libertarian author Edith Efron) and A Time for Action in 1980. Together these books laid out the moneyed and corporate conservatives' game plan for taking over the parts of American society concerned with defining objective reality: Think tanks, colleges, and the media.

Dewey? Subversive? Screwed up the world? You've gotta be kidding me. Hard to read, exceptionally difficult to interpret, and probably misguided, but screwed up the world? No.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

WTF? This isn't even a real book, why is it on a list of books?

I am surprised these yahoos didn't put books on feminism on their list.

@ #35 Phoenix Woman

I agree with you on the communism issue. It always confused me that, far as I can tell, communist revolutions always seem to spring up in agrarian feudal societies instead of industrialized capitalist states, which seemed to be what Karl Marx had in mind.

Bill Moyers mentions the work of William Simon here:

When I was born my father was making $2 a day working on the highway. He and my mother were knocked down and almost out by the Great Depression and were poor all their lives. But I had access to good public schools. My brother went to college on the GI Bill. When I borrowed $450 to buy my first car, I drove to a public university on public highways and rested in public parks. I discovered America as a shared project, the central engine of our national experience.

I don't need to tell you that a profound transformation is occurring in America. And it's man-made. Over the last 30 years a disciplined, well-funded and closely-coordinated coalition of corporate elites, power-hungry religious conservatives, and hard-line right-wing operatives has mounted an aggressive drive to dismantle the public foundations and philosophy of shared prosperity and fairness in America.

It's all right there in bold letters in the early manifestos of the Reagan Revolution - essential reading like William Simon's A Time for Truth . He argued that "funds generated by business" would have to "rush by multimillions" into conservative causes to uproot the institutions and the "heretical" morality of the New Deal. An "alliance" between right-wing leaders and "men of action in the capitalist world" must mount a "veritable crusade" against everything brought forth by the Progressive era. Reading right out of the new reactionary playbook, the business press somberly concluded that "some people will obviously have to do with less ... It will be a bitter pill for many Americans to swallow the idea of doing with less so that big business can have more," BusinessWeek sermonized.

They succeeded beyond expectations. Instead of trying to keep a level playing field, government now favors the rich, powerful, and privileged. The public institutions, the laws and regulations, the ideas, norms, and beliefs which aimed to protect the common good and helped to create America's iconic middle class, are now gone, greatly weakened, or increasingly vulnerable to attack. The Nobel Laureate economist Robert Solow sums it up succinctly: What it's all about, he says, "is the redistribution of wealth in favor of the wealthy and of power in favor of the powerful."

A lot of my problem with making lists like this is there's no control -- for example, how do we know that creation/popularizing of a book that justifies 'the path of what we wanted to do anyway' is what screwed up humanity, rather than a symptom. (In other words, if we ran history again for a number of times, half with the individual book being written/compiled/promoted and half without, would the worlds without just find other excuses to justify atrocities?) I know, I know -- damn scientists and their need for controls. (For that matter, I'm an astronomer -- I should be used to trying to find what controls I can in my data.)

About the only thing I can say is that, while a book advancing ideals and philosophies might have a detrimental effect on society, a book stating observations shouldn't. So the one thing that most certainly shouldn't be on that list is Darwin's work.

The Turner Diaries

@ #4

I came in to say exactly the same thing. People who embrace Rand's pseudo-intellectual justification of adolescent narcissism and join this growing army of irrational anarcho-capitalist libertarians are becoming a big problem.

Books do not screw up the world. Uncritical minds attached to hyperactive bodies screw up the world. While there may be
such a thing as a "bad" book the real problem is bad readers.

Whichever book of Aristotle's that first pushed teleology deserves a bit of a kicking. Nothing lets off bad behaviour - an Inquisition or a purge there - like saying putting things towards final purpose - the Kingdom of God, historically inevitable communism.

Other than the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat" I don't think there is anything much very damaging in the Communist Manifesto (I don't know about Marx's other work) other than firmly selling a teleological view of history. I think Aristotle should take precedence because he added the teleology to Abrahamaic religion as well as Hegel and Marx and their followers.

Left Behind

That cartoon cat has got to be one of the most evil creations to ever spring from a writer's brain.

Have you tried "Garfield Minus Garfield?"

It's the daily Garfield with Garfield carefully removed. It becomes the story of Jon Arbuckle, a lonely, depressed man who talks to himself.

http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com/

One point that is usually missed when discussing Machiavelli: because a lot of people get a sample of it in High School and think "oooh this is the template for how to be a bad guy", they think it's cool and worse, that Machiavelli advocated the policies in it.

He didn't.

The book was intended as a satire of the stuff he saw all the rotten princelings around him doing all the time. Ask any serious historian and they will tell you: if you want to know what Machiavelli really thought, forget "The Prince", read "The Discourses"!

(Incidentally a lot of this is also true of "The Book of 5 Rings", by Miyamoto Musashi. People read that trying to figure out Japan and imagine that this is what all samurai were like, super honorable etc. This book was written by the crotchety old bastard Musashi bitching about how worthless the kids were these days. "Bah! Back in my day we'd slit our bellies every day before breakfast! These rotten kids today are lucky to slit their bellies once a month! What slackers! Get offa my lawn!!!")

There is a of course an obvious difficulty picking 'books that screwed up the world'. In many instances, lots of people who never actually read the specific book in question used it to justify all sorts of evil shit.
'
Adam Smith is a good example. 'Wealth of Nations' is actually pretty good, but has been misappropriated down to a single false bullet-point which isn't actually in the book, to the harm of many.

Then there are books like the Bible, which contain mounds of bad stuff along with some contradictory good things... and the people who screw up the world saying they are following the bible by-and-large are just cherry-picking for post-hoc justification.

the people who screw up the world saying they are following the bible by-and-large are just cherry-picking for post-hoc justification.

I'd amend that to say

the people who screw up the world saying they are following the bible by-and-large are just cherry-picking for post-hoc justification.

Have to agree with Mrs Tilton on Smith.
Smith was more describing things than expounding a philosophy.
Machiavelli is possibly one of the least understood and second most-often misquoted author ever, behind Smith.

As for "books that have screwed up the world" I would point at most of the texts of the Abrahamic traditions, not because of their content, but because of those who have held them up in the air and commanded injustice, war and atrocity by athority of those books, and the deity they purport to represent.

@37: I'm not sure what you mean. There was a text published and circulated under that name that was a fake -- but it was the hoax that caused the damage by lending some kind of credence to the antisemitism of the time.

I'd object to Smith being on there just as much as I would Darwin. Smith's ideas were perceptive and largely descriptive, and he was hardly a man that advocated rapaciousness in capitalism. Anyone who thinks they know what he's about just given general knowledge of his economic ideas should read his "Theory of Moral Sentiments" to get a better sense of him.

What? No Dan Brown?

Piffle. The DaVinci Code made people openly talk about church conspiracies and even suggest that the church might be (GASP!) lying to them. Gawds, all the churches in my area were having meetings (with big banners announcing them) to discuss (defend against and refute) a work of fiction. It was hilarious. Thank you, Dan Brown!

Angels & Demons had a high ranking member of the Vatican attempting to detonate an antimatter bomb to start a holy war. And it had ambigrams, which make anything cool.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Ambigram_rotating.gif

That's all a net positive in my, er... book.

Interesting that "Descent of Man" is on their list while "Origin of Species" is not. It seems to me to indicate that the fundamental source of their objection to evolution (if this were not already obvious) lies in a myopic, childish fit of wounded pride.

Just the premise that books (the Bible included) can "screw up the world" is unquenchably idiotic.

People and movements screw up the world. Books can't do anything but record what they think.

it is impossible to take these lists seriously when they've left off the works that have been overwhelmingly influential, incredibly widely read, and have led billions of people into delusion and stupidity

Speaking of which, how about the following works of "delusion" and "stupidity"?

Earth in the Balance, by a certain former Vice-president of the United States of America.

The Population Bomb, by Ehrlich, another tome of doomsday prophecies that manifestly failed to materialize.

Anything by Michael "Sicko" Moore (kind of a lifetime achievement award).

I would also include Al Franken, except that I don't think anyone with a brain takes Al seriously.

My Pet Goat.

It paralyzed the leader of the free world and apparently caused enough brain damage to make the invasion of Iraq seem like a good idea. Now the whole world suffers.

Damn that evil tome.

"People and movements screw up the world. Books can't do anything but record what they think." - unicow

Well, yeah, books only screw up the world so far as they kill trees and create land-fill, but you have to admit, books have helped spread the ideas that galvanize the movements that screw up the world. The book is a powerful technological advancement. It amplifies voices and restrains the ever mischievous broken telephone. It's much more than an archival technology.

I'm surprised the lists leave out Rousseau and Freud--and for that matter Silent Spring.

I'd include the Bible but leave out the Book of Mormon, since the wackiest Mormon theology comes from later stuff. (The anti-black racism is in Pearl of Great Price and the polygamy is in Doctrine and Covenants.)

I would also include Al Franken, except that I don't think anyone with a brain takes Al seriously.

Hmmm... since he's spent most of his adult life as a comedian, and all of his political books have been satirical, I wonder if this is even really an insult?

But seriously, folks... I take Franken seriously. If you listened to even a little bit of his Air America show and still don't take Franken seriously, I don't see how I can take you seriously.

Y'know, it always astounds me when people list Marx's work as evil or negative in terms of impact. I mean, Groucho and Me wasn't Moby Dick or anything, but it doesn't deserve the villification I'm seeing...

What?

...

Nevermind.

I read the cover flap of the Wiker book at Borders the other day; he's got more than ten, but I can't recall what the others were. His point with The Descent of Man is that it allegedly shows that Darwin was a racist who advocated eugenics and Social Darwinism as a proactive philosophy. My reactions were, in order, "I doubt that" and "so what if he did?" Somehow, I doubt either of those concerns would be effectively answered in the text.

Just as a misreading of Darwin has brought out innumerable falsehoods about evolution by religious nuts, misreading of Smith has brought out the same kind of wingnuttery.

And there certainly is some evidence that Darwin derived some of his thoughts from Smith via Malthus.

Darwin is one of the greatest scientists ever, and no book of his should be on the index of malign texts. The Descent of Man is a landmark in the advance of human knowledge and was well ahead of its time in a number of respects. Yet it is not just a work of objective observation and brilliant theoretical speculation but is also unfortunately in some respects a continuation of the intellectual tradition of Blumenbach, Gobineau, and Knox. Intellectual history is a mixed bag.

Darwin, Introduction to The Descent of Man, 1871:

Ernst Haeckel "has recently ...published his Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte, in which he fully discusses the genealogy of man. If this work had appeared before my essay had been written, I should probably never have completed it. Almost all the conclusions at which I have arrived I find confirmed by this naturalist, whose knowledge on many points is much fuller than mine."

Darwin defers to the authority of Ernst Haeckel on the subject of human evolution.

Robert J. Richards, U of Chicago Haeckel scholar: "Ernst Haeckel's popular book Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (Natural history of creation, 1868) represents human species in a hierarchy, from lowest (Papuan and Hottentot) to highest (Caucasian, including the Indo-German and Semitic races)."

Darwin, The Descent of Man:

"The belief that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilised races, of ancient and modern people, and by the analogy of the whole vertebrate series."

"The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatisation, and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual, faculties."

Man, these people need to wise up.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is way more important then Beyond Good and Evil.

Das Capital lays out the Socialist Economic theory better then the Communist Manifesto.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by Keynes is a much better 'opposite' to Marx's Das Capital and Manifesto.

Global Warming Is A Scam, it's considered good taste to effect a veneer of legitimacy before trolling a thread.

Dennis N #50:

Yes, your version is much better.

The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money by Keynes is a much better 'opposite' to Marx's Das Capital and Manifesto.

And it normally shows up on these lists of Dire Grimoires of Pestilence as well. The boobists must be slipping.

I'm also sure that I speak for everyone here when I say that I didn't actually start eating babies until I read "Discourse on Method".

People who put The Prince on these lists almost certainly haven't read it. Similarly, from a Regnery writer's perspective, why include Leviathan but not Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding or Dialogues on Natural Religion, which have surely created more atheists than any other works, the Bible apart?

Isn't it glaringly obvious that principle of these lists is not "Books that screwed up the world" but "Books that stand in as a label for people or ideas I oppose".

Also, there was no book "My Pet Goat". There was a story called "The Pet Goat" contained in a reading textbook the Great Leader was reading.

@59

Certainly, books can help get ideas to people who otherwise may not have heard them. And they do a good job of getting things across without the "broken telephone" effect.

Still, I find it difficult to believe that any book is powerful enough to prompt action on its own. Books can be used by give voice to movements and help further their goals, but a book isn't going to cause a movement all by itself. Or at least I can't think of any that have.

Then again, I'm probably just picking nits because the lists are so dumb.

Purely for symbolic reasons, I'd certainly put a few books by Irving Kristol on top of my list ;

"Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea" 1995
"Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead" 1983
"Two Cheers for Capitalism" 1978

Knowing how many people in the present administration have been influenced by these books, they for sure come up close in the category of screwing the world...

I don't think it matters how much effect books have overall on people, since we're comparing books to books. Obviously, books don't trump, and are not the sole cause, of actions. But we're not comparing actions with books, so it's all relative.

I agree Machiavelli is pretty misunderstood. Not a big fan either, but the Prince was not all that evil. It made itself clear that it was meant for a ruler to be able to keep his land well maintained (it's called The freaking Prince!). It never even suggested "ends justify the means," for anyone else as far as I remember. Even if it wasn't a satire (as someone else mentioned), it was pretty clear that he thought you need to be a douchebag to run a land, which is what rulers still do nowadays anyway.

What about the nam-shub of Enki?

If there was a sizable crossover of right-wingnuts and people who have read Snowcrash, I think they would certainly put it on the list. (The distinction between fiction and history being no obstacle to them of course.) ;)

"You want to know what the worst book ever written ever was?"
"What?"
"Football: It's a Funny Old Game" by Andrew John."
-Norman Lovett & Craig Charles

People suggesting that the Quran should be on this list (I know this is a silly game, but lets play along) may need to rethink. I think books that cannot do their work without a whole organized movement and a supporting cast of explanatory commentaries should not be included. Thus, Syed Qutb's "in the shade of the quran" or Maudoodi's famous commentaries on the Quran are much more responsible for modern islamist violence than the Quran itself...If you to read the book (by itself, with no commentary or explanation), its hard to see how it leads to Islamism as currently understood..or to any other coherent system, good or bad. Its poetic (in places), elliptical, repetitive and extremely short on specifics. You are told 700 times (literally, people have counted) that you must pray the salat prayers, but not even once are you told how the prayer is to be done and what you say in the course of the prayer. The same for most of the other standard islamic practices. There are some exceptions, for example, the rules of inheritance are described in some detail in one spot, a short list of bad things (wine, gambling, idols, sorcery, fortune telling) pops up occasionally, we are told to cut off hands and feet on alternate sides on those who "make mischief in the land" (or make lists of evil books?), there is a suggestion that you beat your wives if they disobey you, though that one has recently been challenged by ingenious feminist translators armed with flexible dictionaries. But really, the whole fascist edifice of Islamism has been built on a list of "great books" (the canon?) that are mostly commentaries on the quran and suchlike, not directly on the text of the Quran. Its a minor quibble, but there is a point in this somewhere.....

Global Warming Is A Scam, it's considered good taste to effect a veneer of legitimacy before trolling a thread.

You mean, concern trolling, as in what you're doing now?

Just wondering.

IIRC the Prince was written mostly from a prison cell, as a big suck up to get out... which worked.

A scam? A scam is something done by a business. If I recall, businesses are the ones denying global warming so they can keep making profits while pumping out carbon. As a helpful suggestion, I think you should change it to "conspiracy". Then look up The Question.

Wingnuts usually confuse me, but list has me attempting to scratch my head without being able to locate it in space: exactly how is Discourse on Method detrimental to Truth, Justice, and the American Way?

Books aren't on his list (or ours either) because of the book itself but as a representative of a hated idea. In this case the hated idea is science or, more precisely, the scientific method. It's not just the idea of evolution that they hate, that's merely the "wedge" issue -- they really want to destroy all of science.

Global Warming Is a Scam,

as usual, never misses an occasion to demonstrate how denial is a serious disease...

The Population Bomb, by Ehrlich, another tome of doomsday prophecies that manifestly failed to materialize.

If you had read the book, and also moved from your comfortable little cocoon, you would notice that many of the predictions came true, but the effects are mainly unfelt in the developed world, especially by ignorant denialists like you.

But really, the whole fascist edifice of Islamism has been built on a list of "great books" (the canon?) that are mostly commentaries on the quran and suchlike, not directly on the text of the Quran. Its a minor quibble, but there is a point in this somewhere.....

Sure, and you did note that it's a quibble. Without all of the political power and confused minds, both the Bible and the Quran are just minor religious works, fantasies if you wish.

But none of the books on the legitimate lists is anything without people using them to screw up the world. Jung used passages in the Quran to illustrate the unconscious. No problem with that. But in a convoluted causality, the Bible, the Quran, and Capital have all played important roles in screwing up the world and people's lives.

It's worth noting from time to time that Revelation is just a demented fantasy which does not point to any obvious actions at all, barely even to any events, and itself is just a minor fiction. Likewise with the Quran, and the majority of Freud's writings (he did pretty well with hysteria, however).

So quibbles noted, I certainly don't mind bashing the Quran, the Bible, and a host of other books for screwing up the world, as understood in the context of PZ's post and this thread (in which the many caveats made were already implicit).

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

#43,

Meh, I disagree with you. Rand's books appeal mostly to adolescents, and then they grow out of it. It happened to me. They've been around for over 60 years, and if anything the number of loyal followers is shrinking.

Incidentally, I think Rand's hoisting of reason as the ultimate good is admirable. She, and her works, failed miserably in the attempt and in their conclusions, certainly, but I think she's overly demonized in much the same way her devotees overly glorify her.

How on earth did the Bible and other major religious texts not make this list???

GWIAS @79,

You mean, concern trolling, as in what you're doing now?

Just wondering.

Don't let all that wondering strain your head. Brownian is not concern-trolling. He is telling you in a (for Brownian uncharacteristically) diplomatic way that you are a gobshite; a judgement in which I concur.

No, really, no need to thank me. Happy to have been of help.

Dianetics.

Glen,

Without all of the political power and confused minds, both the Bible and the Quran are just minor religious works, fantasies if you wish.

Well, they are the product of human imagination, but to qualify these as minor works, I have to really question, how would they have looked like if they had been major works ? I think your comment lacks objectivity.

I'm Ok, You're Ok.

EST bullshit.

On Mein Kampf, did it actually "screw up the world"? Or was it merely Hitler's exposition of bad ideas and bad intentions? In other words, was the book, itself, influential? I had always thought of it as more of a curiosity piece. But maybe I'm wrong, and it actually was popular enough to be influential?

Religious doctrine books (Bible, Mormon, Quran, Malleus) seem to me to have independent "screw up the world" value, because these all contributed to spreading the doctrines. Protocols, similarly.

I guess it depends on if you want a book to stand in for the harmfulness of the author's ideas and/or actions, or if you actually want the book itself to have been an influence for evil.

... to be honest, as a librarian I am a bit queasy about these "dangerous book lists". They seem to me to embody an inherently anti-knowledge perspective. I *want* all these "dangerous" books to be available in every library, unrestricted, so that they can suffer in the marketplace of ideas, and so that the many, many ways in which they are wrong can better be discovered and explicated.

Incidentally, I think Rand's hoisting of reason as the ultimate good is admirable. She, and her works, failed miserably in the attempt and in their conclusions, certainly, but I think she's overly demonized in much the same way her devotees overly glorify her.

Demonizing Rand gives her more credit than she's due. She isn't responsible for anything other than misguided simplistic pap, heavy-handed screeds, reactionary economics, and bad metaphysics. She isn't any more responsible for smug entitled douchebags than Ashlee Simpson is responsible for teenagers being the way they are. They just latch on to her.

Brendan S - thanks for mentioning Keynes' General Theory, the book responsible for screwing up the economics of our society more than any other. They're still teaching his ideas in most high schools, despite the fact that much of it has been discredited. But rather than listing it as an opposite of work of Marx (Karl) such as Das Capital, they both belong on the list. Marx's economic ideas are also easy to prove incorrect. Both have been used to cause a great deal of human suffering.

NM @ 11:
Agree. Adam Smith would be considered far too "Lefty" to write for today's Wall Street Journal. Ditto Keynes, for that matter.

Moreover, Marx, at least in Das Kapital, was also pretty much "telling it like it is", i.e. how Capitalism worked in late 19th century Europe. Debates over Globalization today are still informed by the insights of Marx, like it or not.
Lenin, Trotsky and Gramsci too, actually.

Stalin is best known for a few aphorisms but to my knowledge never wrote anything of lasting value or importance. He wasn't terribly intellectual, to say the least.

Lists of books like this are utterly pointless. They betray a censorious impulse. The answer to bad ideas is better ones, in a free and open debate. I jokingly tell friends the Holy Bible in its entirety is the best advertisement for atheism that I know of.

Just the premise that books (the Bible included) can "screw up the world" is unquenchably idiotic.

Ah, but you aren't looking further down the slippery slope. Brand the books as things that "screw up the world" and then quietly suggest that maybe they be removed from public consumption. You savvy?

Das Capital lays out the Socialist Economic theory better then the Communist Manifesto.

What Marx did in Das Kapital was to... analyze capitalism. He took as given the "labor theory of value" that had already been developed by Smith, Ricardo, etc. and carried it to what he saw as its logical conclusion -- the inability of capitalism to overcome the problem of repeated crises of overproduction (not in the sense of producing more than needed, but more than can be sold to make a profit).

He didn't really propose any "Socialist Economic theory". The only alternative according to him would be to do away with the law of value altogether...

Top 4:

Bible
Koran
Atlas Shrugged
Surprised by Joy (C.S. Lewis)

Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche

That was a great game. I didn't know Nietzsche worked at Ubisoft.

... to be honest, as a librarian I am a bit queasy about these "dangerous book lists". They seem to me to embody an inherently anti-knowledge perspective. I *want* all these "dangerous" books to be available in every library, unrestricted, so that they can suffer in the marketplace of ideas, and so that the many, many ways in which they are wrong can better be discovered and explicated.

Yes, I understand the queasiness. But that queasiness should apply to wanting books banned, not labeling them (or the ideas expressed in them) dangerous. The wingnuts probably do want the books (or ideas) on their lists banned. We (i.e., I, and I hope most others here) don't want the books/ideas we think are dangerous (bible, etc.) banned, we want them understood and hence rejected in all their true horror.

If you had read the book, and also moved from your comfortable little cocoon, you would notice that many of the predictions came true, but the effects are mainly unfelt in the developed world, especially by ignorant denialists like you

Ah, nothing like a little leftist revisionism. The predictions concerned the developed world, but if they didn't happen there, we can retroactively move the goalposts any time we feel like it.

Don't let all that wondering strain your head. Brownian is not concern-trolling. He is telling you in a (for Brownian uncharacteristically) diplomatic way that you are a gobshite; a judgement in which I concur.

You know you've won the argument when all the other side can come up with is schoolyard-level insults.

A scam? A scam is something done by a business.

And the business of global warming is booming, what with research grants in the billions and some individuals (including a certain failed presidential candidate) making a fortune trading in carbon credits while he zips around the world in his private jet.

Simple statement from the Bookyards blog:

"Books do not screw up the world, people do."

http://bookyards.blogspot.com/2008/05/10-books-that-screwed-up-world-an…

Really? You think scientists are making money off global warming? Scientists don't make stuff up to get grants. You never stop to question who benefits from denying it? Aka big business. They DO make stuff up to keep making profits; see: cigarette industry.

I'd agree that Ayn Rand was simply a purveyor of bad fiction unless Alan Freakin' Greenspan wasn't an acolyte. She counts as eeeeevillllll.

Who upthread was complaining about Keynes? The guy gave us the modern world. He, to a large extent, is why, though my grandparents were dirt poor with little hope for much more than enough food to get through the winter, I live a comfortable, middle class life.

You think scientists are making money off global warming?

Duh! Of course they make money off it. How much are governments around the world spending on this junk science? Billions. If they suddenly found no link between CO2 emissions and "climate change", guess what happens to all of that money.

Scientists don't make stuff up to get grants.

You were aware, were you not, that the prophet of your movement, "Dr." James Hansen, once wrote that he thought deceiving the public was okay as long as it furthered the cause? No? Well, now you are.

But that queasiness should apply to wanting books banned, not labeling them (or the ideas expressed in them) dangerous.

It should apply to labeling them and the ideas expressed in them as well. There are books that I find repugnant, but I argue with them. I don't compile blacklists of "dangerous" books, and to do so is, as someone else has already pointed out, a display of a censorial attitude and of propriety (two things which almost always go hand in hand).

The lists are anti-intellectualist, and should make anyone who cares about ideas suspicious of the motives of the people who wrote them.

I'll second Ayn Rand and also suggest Derrida, Foucault, etc.
Not that I can think of anyone directly hurt by deconstructionists, but they've redirected generations of sharp minds into masturbatory, inconsequential analysis. And their relativism props up the mush-minded idea that reason is "just another way of knowing", and therefore equivalent to whatever garbage a person choses to fabricate. Thus, jargon becomes a substitute for evidence, and our culture takes a step back into darkness, away from enlightenment values.

GWIAS, do you deny that global warming is real, and largely caused by human activities? Or just that some professionals make a living by studying it?

What's fun is to look at the top 10 list of conservative Americans think tanks (www.humanevents.com) :

1. The communist manifesto - obvious reasons

2. Mein Kampf - on everybody's list

3. Quotations from Chairman Mao - also obvious

4. The Kinsey report ! the part they don't like : "The report included reports of sexual activity by boys--even babies--and said that 37% of adult males had had at least one homosexual experience"

5. Democracy and education - John Dewey : His views had great influence on the direction of American education--particularly in public schools--and helped nurture the Clinton generation.

6. Das Kapital - also obvious

7. The Feminine Mystique - Betty Friedan : disparaged traditional stay-at-home motherhood as life in "a comfortable concentration camp"--a role that degraded women and denied them true fulfillment in life.

8. Introduction to positive Philosophy - Auguste Comte : he coined the term "sociology." He did so while theorizing that the human mind had developed beyond "theology" (a belief that there is a God who governs the universe), through "metaphysics" (in this case defined as the French revolutionaries' reliance on abstract assertions of "rights" without a God), to "positivism," in which man alone, through scientific observation, could determine the way things ought to be. No wonder they don't like this book...

9. Beyond Good and Evil - Nietzsche argued that men are driven by an amoral "Will to Power," and that superior men will sweep aside religiously inspired moral rules, which he deemed as artificial as any other moral rules, to craft whatever rules would help them dominate the world around them. Also no surprise.

10. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - Keynes : The book is a recipe for ever-expanding government.

So, 3 communists, 1 sex report, 1 feminist, 2 atheist philosophers, 1 nazi, 2 pro government : the world's most harmful according to conservatives.

I am quite pleased to see Comte on this list. Think I am going to have to re-read him.

Oops, that wasn't clear...

GWIAS, do you deny that global warming is real, and largely caused by human activities? Or are you just affirming that some professionals make a living by studying it?

Laura Quilter,

I agree wholeheartedly. Which is why I'm compiling a list of books I wish more people had read rather than contributing to the "dangerous books" discussion (I would probably have mentioned Cesare Lombroso if I had). Here it is, in no particular order, and since I'm on my way out the door I won't be here to defend my selections:

Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World
Camus, The Rebel
Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread; Fields, Factories, and Workshops
Levi, The Drowned and the Saved
Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Browning, Ordinary Men
Agamben, Homo Sacer, State of Exception
Stone, The Trial of Socrates
Patterson, Slavery and Social Death
Mills, The Sociological Imagination
and the plays of Octave Mirbeau and Dario Fo...

There are plenty more by women, but since I've mentioned several of them on here already I won't again.

Well, they are the product of human imagination, but to qualify these as minor works, I have to really question, how would they have looked like if they had been major works ? I think your comment lacks objectivity.

And yours is objective, I suppose.

Oh Jesus fucking Christ, can't you think it out? The fact is that the Bible and the Koran were both conjured up by minor religions, which, had they stayed minor, wouldn't have caused much harm. There's nothing inherent in them to cause them to become influential in this world. Not like Plato or Aristotle, whose ideas were themselves compelling, if sometimes unfortunately so (esp. Plato).

So ok, I didn't claim to be objective, but I really was, within the implicit caveats. You're just not very able to think out the obvious, and are altogether too quick to reveal both your ignorance and your prejudice.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

GWIAS, do you deny that global warming is real, and largely caused by human activities?

I deny this religion just as I deny Christianity, Islam, astrology and any other form of woo.

Or just that some professionals make a living by studying it?

Of course they make a living (a very lucrative one at that). Just like Pat Robertson.

He's denying it. Thinks it's junk science.

Also he never uses any science to defend his notion that it's a "scam".

Where's your precedence for this idea? Have their been other areas of study you felt were only made up?

The first list had exactly one book on it that I would not want to read. What does that say about me? Beyond Good and Evil's a pretty interesting read, by the way - Nietzsche wasn't RIGHT, but he certainly wasn't entirely wrong.

Here's Hansen's CV: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/cv_hansen_200702.pdf

Pretty impressive stuff. He has a PhD in Physics and works for NASA.

Who upthread was complaining about Keynes?

An inconsequential dumbass, that's who. There is, especially among right-leaning professors of economics, an almost axiomatic discounting of Keynes' work in its entirety. That's not only asinine, but totally ignores the benefits of many of the stimulus programs of the Great Depression and the role they played in ending it (and those are matters of historical fact).

I once had an economics professor who, every year, would indoctrinate a new generation of freshmen and turn them into zombies who would simply shout "That's Keynsian bullcrap!" any time anyone said anything that sounded even remotely similar to anything in The General Theory. They eventually grow out of it, and start to learn just where Keynes was mistaken and just where he was right, but there's that intermittent period where they run around regurgitating their "Keynes was wrong about everything" axiom.

Really, I'm not sure how these guys get tenure. The economics professor I'm talking about loved Adam Smith, but started screaming "You're a communist son of a bitch!" at some economist from AFIT who seemed to endorse the labor theory of value. I think he and the crybaby upthread must be two peas in the same pod of counterfactual insanity.

... to be honest, as a librarian I am a bit queasy about these "dangerous book lists". They seem to me to embody an inherently anti-knowledge perspective. I *want* all these "dangerous" books to be available in every library, unrestricted, so that they can suffer in the marketplace of ideas, and so that the many, many ways in which they are wrong can better be discovered and explicated.

To be honest, as a librarian you ought to welcome a discussion of how books did or did not "screw up the world." Bad as the lists are, they were not labeled as "dangerous books" as your strawman is, they're just judgments on the results that the books have had in the world, however well or poorly they were interpreted.

No one, not even the moron who listed Darwin's book as one of the ten, was suggesting banning the books, or telling people not to read them, at least not from what we can tell from the first-hand links.

So it seems that you're complaining about what you claim to wish would happen, discussion of the ideas in the books (if not very deep discussion).

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Have their been other areas of study you felt were only made up?

Intelligent design comes to mind, as does much of the alt-med fad.

Fair enough, but those areas aren't aligned with reputable science organizations. I should rephrase my question: Have their been other areas of study done by reputable science organizations, in the way global warming is (aka chock full of real scientists), that you felt were only made up?

Pretty impressive stuff. He has a PhD in Physics and works for NASA.

And he thinks it's okay to lie to the public if it furthers his agenda. That makes an impression too.

And he thinks it's okay to lie to the public if it furthers his agenda. That makes an impression too.

What's your evidence for this claim? Or are you just trolling? Your previous post referred to him as "Dr" Hansen. I already pointed out that he is really a Doctor. So I have very little respect for the truthfulness and good faith of your postings. Try a little civility.

PZ Meyers Bad Book List

Darwin's Black Box, Behe

Well I'm sure Behe is pleased to make the PZ list, after all there are many ID and Creationist books out there. According to Meyers his book made an major impact on the world.

I agree with UW Professor Numbers on this one who is also a critic of ID, the reason why atheists tend to claim that those in ID are Creationists, is because it's easier to protect their dogma in the public schools...

ID is able to be performed in a lab, and it doesn't use the Bible for answers, thus you will see some conclusions contrary to Creationism. ID basically uses the lab. Performing all four basics of science, "observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion". In the lab the object or objects are studied, if there is a high level of CSI (complex and specified information), the conclusion within the Intelligent Design model would conclude "intelligent" agent but doesn't go any further in explaining the conclusion.

Indeed that would much much harder to try and discredit for teaching in the public schools than Creationists who use the Bible and then science for it's answers.

Michael, please describe an ID experiment that can be performed in a lab, for our review. You may win a few converts this way.

#84, Glen, Bash away at all of them. I just wanted to make the point that the Quran (or the Bible, for that matter) are not "how-to manuals" of fascism. ...AND there ARE how-to manuals of fascism out there (I mentioned "in the shade of the quran" and everything Maududi ever wrote because they are much more directly responsible for "islamofascism" than the Quran, though they both claim to be explaining the Quran). If we are to make a list of top ten books, then we have to pick and choose. "Orientalism" is a very effecive piece of academic sabotage, but that does not mean it should make the top ten....on second thoughts, it probably SHOULD be on that list! How about adding "Orientalism" to the list instead of the Quran? That should maintain diversity on the list and bring it more up to date!
By the way, nobody has voted for the "law of Manu" yet (I dont know if its an actual book or are the laws in some other book?). That's the Hindu text that prescribes all the ridiculous caste restrictions and other discriminatory rules that made life less than pleasant for hundreds of millions of people...

It makes me sick when Adam Smith and "Wealth of Nations" gets mentioned as one of the 10 'Worst Books' list; if anything, it should be on a 10 'Best Books' list.

Smith was one of the first philosophers to recognize that nations were not made wealthy by acquiring reserves of gold, or by maintaining huge trade surpluses, or by making their neighbors poor. Countries (and the people in them) are made wealthy by mutually beneficial exchange and trade, and through the specialization of productive process.

Modern capitalism, working in conjunction with modern science and technology, is directly responsible for the incredible increase in the standard of living throughout much of the world over the past two hundred years.

An appropriate analogy:

Smith:Marx :: Darwin:Lamarck

ID is able to be performed in a lab, and it doesn't use the Bible for answers, thus you will see some conclusions contrary to Creationism. ID basically uses the lab.

Show us ID being done in the lab.

BTW, looking for complexity (or IC, a slippery concept) is not doing ID science, it's just a fake measure conjured up because no one can find rationality or purpose behind the structure and function of life, save where humans have selected or engineered it

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

What's your evidence for this claim?

"Dr." James Hansen wrote, in Scientific American in March, 2004:

Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as "synfuels," shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate forcing scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions.

In other words, "lying and exaggeration were okay in the past, but we're really telling the truth this time. Trust us!"

Or are you just trolling? ...So I have very little respect for the truthfulness and good faith of your postings. Try a little civility.

You might want to try taking your own advice, as well as informing yourself about the "leader" of your movement.

Good points all, omar.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Michael (#123) trumpeted,

Well I'm sure Behe is pleased to make the PZ list, after all there are many ID and Creationist books out there. According to Meyers his book made an major impact on the world.

**Ahem** read the post before you look like a fool. **ahem**

If the man earned a doctorate at an accredited university, you should show respect and not but it in scare quotes, otherwise you are not having this discussion in good faith. Do not wonder why you may be ignored and slandered in the future, when you yourself are arguing in bad faith.

PZ Meyers Bad Book List

Darwin's Black Box, Behe

No, Michael, you have it wrong. PZ Myers (mind the spelling) laughs at the idea of calling Darwin's Black Box one of "10 books that screwed up the world".

Read the post again. This time for comprehension.

If the man earned a doctorate at an accredited university, you should show respect and not but it in scare quotes, otherwise you are not having this discussion in good faith.

Interesting how the faithful are so fierce in defense of their prophet, isn't it?

You might want to try taking your own advice, as well as informing yourself about the "leader" of your movement.

You, too, are mistaken. There is no movement. There is no leader. You can completely ignore everything Hansen ever said or published, and nothing changes. Go read the latest IPCC report. It doesn't stand and fall with Hansen or any other single person.

Science isn't a religion, for crying out loud.

I've never heard of the man. Having a doctorate doesn't mean you're right. But you do earn the title. You are the one who is equating Dr. with correct and then seeking to strike it from him for that reason. We are not.

As someone said earlier in these comments, none of the books mentioned in any of these lists is inherently evil. They merely record the ideas made and transmitted by people. It's the implementation of those ideas by the resourceful, the powerful, and the manipulative that can be a problem. The main problem is a lack of critical thinking and analysis skills among the public and consumers of the ideas.
But I find the notion of such lists disturbing; it conjures visions of Fahrenheit 451. While I find the ideas in Mein Kampf disgusting, it would be worse to include it in a lists of books to avoid, and much worse to actually ban such a book.
That being said, and ignoring my own disturbing trend, my list of books that influenced the world in a negative way would include:
- The Old Testament
- The New Testament
- The Qur'an
- The Hadith (not technically a book)
- The City of God
- Summa Theologica
- Institutes of the Christian Religion
- The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660-1783
- Mao's Red book
- ?

GWIAS (#127) proclaimed,

In other words, "lying and exaggeration were okay in the past, but we're really telling the truth this time. Trust us!"

I'm not big on Global Warming factoids, but it seems like Hansen is calling for objective methods, not saying that they always are or were. Is this strong opinion of his more apparent in a different quote?

On the other hand, you seem a little tense, can I offer you some tea?

How can an interesting theory like Evolution, which showed us how fascinating and connected all life on Earth really is, be counted as screwing up anything except an out-dated and closed-mind, two millennia old world-view?

Earth in the Balance, by a certain former Vice-president of the United States of America.

The Population Bomb, by Ehrlich, another tome of doomsday prophecies that manifestly failed to materialize.

Anything by Michael "Sicko" Moore (kind of a lifetime achievement award).

I would also include Al Franken, except that I don't think anyone with a brain takes Al seriously.

World, not USA. It's called "10 books that screwed up the world".

@ Omar Ali --

I don't know if the "Laws of Manu" would be considered a "book" or not. It is a seperate text of the Dharmasatra. I'm still trying to figure out how this bit--"51. No father who knows (the law) must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter; for a man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity, is a seller of his offspring."--works in the whole context of dowries (i.e. "Let's immolate our daughter-in-law since her family didn't finish paying the dowry.")

... but totally ignores the benefits of many of the stimulus programs of the Great Depression and the role they played in ending it ...

Hmmm. Some serious scholars believe that that Great Depression was prolonged by the many stimulus programs of FDR, as justified by Keynesian theory. They make a very good case for their conclusions. They also don't use ad hominem attacks as part of their justification, Dustin.

From comment 35:

Karl Marx would have been horrified to see Communism tried out in places without a long tradition of democratic capitalism; he was hoping that the UK would be the first post-capitalist state. The whole frickin' point of Capital (to use the English translation of the title) is that societies evolve in stages from feudalism to capitalism to socialism or communism. It doesn't work to leapfrog from feudalism to socialism.

And then came Lenin and said "no, actually, it does work when there's an avantgarde of professional revolutionaries". And then he... tried to prove it.

(Note that you used "evolve" in the Pokemon sense.)

Glen,

There's nothing inherent in them to cause them to become influential in this world. Not like Plato or Aristotle, whose ideas were themselves compelling, if sometimes unfortunately so (esp. Plato).

First, you're answering my question (how would they look like). Second, this is completely new to me. I admit my complete ignorance. But then, please point me to further reading on this issue (link ?). You're wetting my appetite !
I knew that many of the ideas in the bible were borrowed from previous cultures and from the greek philosophers, but had always thought that there was also some original work.

Damnit, still have work to do to get rid of my old Jesuit prejudices. I guess years of endoctrination don't go away that easily.

Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as "synfuels," shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate forcing scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions.

In other words, "lying and exaggeration were okay in the past, but we're really telling the truth this time. Trust us!"

Seems to me that the only "lying and exaggeration" going on here is your (mis)characterization of Hansen's quote. "Extreme scenarios" is not synonymous with falsehoods: Any sort of forecasting science will give a range of possible scenarios. If you're trying to influence public policy and the policymakers (which in our society includes the public) are completely unaware of the problem, the best way to get their attention is to talk about the worst-case scenarios; once you've got their attention, it makes more sense to talk about the most likely scenarios. Unless the worst-case scenarios are fabricated or wilfully misrepresented — and Hansen's quote does not suggest any such thing — there's nothing dishonest about this.

It is, however, dishonest on your part to say, based on this quote, that Hansen has admitted to "lying and exaggeration."

Here's a list of books I think should be required reading in school or life or whatever (other than the first, there is no particular order to these):

1. John Stuart Mill - On Liberty: This one is, in my opinion, the most important political work anyone can ever read. It is the only book I've ever read that I'd qualify as almost unequivocally right.

2. Plato - The Republic: He wasn't right about terribly much, but he did expound the dialectic form of reasoning and the book is worth it for the examples of how this can work in philosophy, alone.

3. Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene/The Blind Watchmaker: I'm including these two, together, as a single volume. They are the single (two) most convincing texts on the value of evolutionary theory written since Origin.

4. Christopher Hitchens - God is not Great: I don't really need to explain this one, do I?

5. Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: One of the most meaningful and entertaining texts on the horrors of war. Vonnegut's treatment of the Bombing of Dresden is respectful and a caution against allowing such an atrocity to happen again.

If I think of any others, I'll post them.

#123 seems to really not get it. Michael, that's the freaking point: ID is creationism because the end result of experimentation is the blanket statement that an "intelligent agent" caused X to happen, or that it created X thing. That gets you nowhere scientifically or intellectually. And what if both evolution AND ID can explain something? They would likely explain the same thing differently, and the explanations would likely be completely incongruous. So what evidence do we have of the "intelligent agent"? How could we possibly define it? We need to know how things happen, not what created things, and have it be left at that. This is somewhat like saying that since you know your parents "created" you, that delving further into your biology is not needed because you know where you came from.

ID is creationism given scientific marketing. It is nothing more. It is an intellectual dead end.

Honorable mentions:

Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship (150 million copies sold)

Sigmund Freud - Interpretation of Dreams

I can't believe "The Prince" was on both lists...Honestly, I think that alone says so much about the people who wrote the lists. The realistic nature of Machiavelli's writing shows how much Wiker and the other want to deny or condemn anything that doesn't fit the idealistic world they've created in their head. (Like a lot of these books, for instance.)

"For there is such a difference between the way men live and the way they ought to live, that anybody who abandons what is for what ought to be will learn something that will ruin rather than preserve him." -Machiavelli, from Chapter 15 of The Prince

That is, as #70 said, if they actually bothered to read it...

#146: I don't know about the patriotism thing, I kinda frown on patriotism/statism.

First, you're answering my question (how would they look like).

See, an honest person would have known about these matters, instead of coming up with strawmen attacks.

Second, this is completely new to me. I admit my complete ignorance.

Complete it may not be, but it's clear that its very thoroughgoing. You keep on with strawman attacks and fatuous reasoning.

But then, please point me to further reading on this issue (link ?). You're wetting my appetite !

Learn the difference between wetting and whetting, you pompous windbag.

knew that many of the ideas in the bible were borrowed from previous cultures and from the greek philosophers, but had always thought that there was also some original work.

Why do you admit to ignorance, and not your amazing stupidity and dishonesty?

Had I said anything like that there was no original work in the Bible, you wouldn't have written another highly disingenuous and non-objective attack.

What I said was that the Bible would be a minor work without political power and confused minds. Your dishonesty is shameful.

Damnit, still have work to do to get rid of my old Jesuit prejudices. I guess years of endoctrination don't go away that easily.

Yeah sure, Jesuit education. The Jesuits from whom I learned for a year and a half knew how to spell, and didn't resort to constant dishonest attacks like you do. Sure, they turned out people as prevaricating and dumb as you appear to be, but that wasn't typical.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Jeez, they left out Copernicus for peddling his "sun-centered solar system" scam?

GWIAS: Begone, foul troll.

Whether you agree with the list of books or not, is it necessarily a bad thing to screw up the world?

I'm sure that there are some books which did upset the current world view of the time, yet in retrospect we would now include them on the list of books which most positively affected the world.

I remember glancing at a book which claimed to list the most influential documents of all time (sorry, can't remember the actual title) and it included the Magna Carta, Origin of Species, the American Bill of Rights (I think), a treatise against slavery, the first vernacular Bible and so on. The argument was that these documents shook the world - and it was a good thing.

Glen D: Bad as the lists are, they were not labeled as "dangerous books" as your strawman is, they're just judgments on the results that the books have had in the world, however well or poorly they were interpreted.

No one, not even the moron who listed Darwin's book as one of the ten, was suggesting banning the books, or telling people not to read them, at least not from what we can tell from the first-hand links.

Relax, dude. You're right that these lists occasion discussion. However, they are not "just judgments on the results that the books have had in the world". Those judgments of actual or likely effects are precisely the reason that lists of censored works are created.

I hardly think it's a "strawman" to make the fairly obvious and historical connection that (a) lists of "books that screwed up the world" is (b) equivalent to a "dangerous books" list and (c) such lists have frequently been used as blacklists. It's nice that you see only the positive side of the lists. But when I see conservatives creating these lists, I don't see them attempting to foster reasoned and informed discussion of the works themselves. Thus, my point that there is an anti-intellectual current to those who make lists of "books that screwed up the world".

BTW, regarding your patronizing and dismissive tone: I did not say that anyone was "suggesting banning the books, or telling people not to read them". I said "[t]hey seem to me to embody an inherently anti-knowledge perspective." Some might call that a strawman.

I would add Swift's "A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick". Sure, some people will argue that it helped end the Irish famine, but at such a horrible cost!

I love reading this blog on biology and creationism, but it's disappointing how when you discuss politics it so rapidly descends into misconceptions and ad hominems.

Not every book that reaches a conclusion that you were a priori opposed to (free market economics, for example) deserves to be placed on the list of the most dangerous books of all time. That is something creationists would do, and as you point out, they did with Darwin.

What would make a book dangerous in my opinion would be if its suggestions were carried out and suffering resulted. This would seem to disqualify Smith and Friedman, whose theories are an integral part (to a large extent) of how most modern Governments sill manage their economies, and from which you all benefit.

A Modest Proposal made me laugh until I cried.

That first list is only nine. Amazon's peek-inside-the-book feature reveals the full list, with four "preliminary screw-ups", ten "big screw-ups" and one "dishonorable mention."

The preliminary screw-ups:

• The Prince
• Discourse on Method
• Leviathan
• Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men

The big screw-ups:

• The Manifesto of the Communist Party
• Utilitarianism
• The Descent of Man
• Beyond Good and Evil
• The State and Revolution
• The Pivot of Civilization
• Mein Kampf
• The Future of an Illusion
• Coming of Age in Samoa
• Sexual Behavior in the Human Male

The dishonorable mention: The Feminine Mystique.

Relax, dude. You're right that these lists occasion discussion. However, they are not "just judgments on the results that the books have had in the world". Those judgments of actual or likely effects are precisely the reason that lists of censored works are created.

Is that why you wrote this?

Religious doctrine books (Bible, Mormon, Quran, Malleus) seem to me to have independent "screw up the world" value, because these all contributed to spreading the doctrines. Protocols, similarly.

Does that paragraph presage censorship, either by yourself or by others?

Glass houses and all.

I hardly think it's a "strawman" to make the fairly obvious and historical connection that (a) lists of "books that screwed up the world" is (b) equivalent to a "dangerous books" list and (c) such lists have frequently been used as blacklists.

It's a total strawman. Here's Nietzsche on the Gospels:

The Gospels are valuable as testimony to the irresistible corruption within the first community. What Paul later carried to its conclusion, with the logician's cynicism of a rabbi, was nevertheless nothing other than that process of decay which had begun with the death of the Redeemer.-- One cannot read these Gospels cautiously enough, every word poses difficulties. I confess, one will pardon me, that precisely on this account they are a first-rate delight for a psychologist--as the opposite of all naive corruption, as subtlety par excellence, as artistry in psychological corruption. The Gospels stand apart. The Bible in general suffers no comparison.

And this:

One does well to put on gloves when reading the New Testament. The proximity of so much uncleanliness almost forces one to do this.

Is this a prelude to censorship? You're really reaching here, apparently so opposed to certain political factions that you have no tolerance of their criticisms.

It's nice that you see only the positive side of the lists. But when I see conservatives creating these lists, I don't see them attempting to foster reasoned and informed discussion of the works themselves.

Yeah, and? The fact is that conservatives are not the only ones who make lists like these, and I don't like your censorious judgment of such lists in general.

Thus, my point that there is an anti-intellectual current to those who make lists of "books that screwed up the world".

No, your point is that conservatives are wrong to do so. You made your own list, hence are liable to condemnation from your own judgment.

BTW, regarding your patronizing and dismissive tone: I did not say that anyone was "suggesting banning the books, or telling people not to read them".

What you said was:

I *want* all these "dangerous" books to be available in every library, unrestricted, so that they can suffer in the marketplace of ideas, and so that the many, many ways in which they are wrong can better be discovered and explicated.

Unless you're given to random acts of platitude, you were apparently responding to someone who did no more than claim that 10 books "screwed up the world." Hence the strawman attack.

I said "[t]hey seem to me to embody an inherently anti-knowledge perspective." Some might call that a strawman.

Damn right it's a strawman, both because you ignored the implications of the following statement, and because you're reading an awful lot ("anti-knowledge perspective") into a list which is not on its own a threat to anything. Yes, I know you meant that I wrote the strawman, but of course I didn't, and it takes selective quotes and ignoring the implications of your further remarks to make your less than truthful case. You wrote in a way that one could easily take it that your remarks were the strawman (ooh, good writing), and in fact they were.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

GWIAS: Begone, foul troll.

This, unfortunately, represents the height of intellectual "discourse" offered by the Warmista crowd. No content, just name-calling and "go away". Sad, but true.

How did a post about a book list pick up a discussion about Global Warming anyway?

it's disappointing how when you discuss politics it so rapidly descends into misconceptions

What would make a book dangerous in my opinion would be if its suggestions were carried out and suffering resulted. This would seem to disqualify Smith and Friedman, whose theories are an integral part (to a large extent) of how most modern Governments sill manage their economies, and from which you all benefit.

What makes you think that Friedman's theory, and modern governments' management of their economies, (two different things, btw), have not lead to any suffering? Do you really think that we live in some sort of Utopia, governments working to optimize global happiness? Tsk, tsk, very disappointing...

(And no, I'm not saying that Friedman should be on a list of books to ban.)

"How did a post about a book list pick up a discussion about Global Warming anyway?" - Steven Alleyn

An argumentum ad pseudonym was leveled against "Global Warming Is A Scam", after he included texts describing Global Warming to his personal list of books that screwed up the world.

#54, QD...

Dan Brown is a pretty controversial writer on this blog. PZ has written about him (and JK Rowling) in less-than positive light in the past. Whenever one of these writers comes up, I never chime in, ever. I don't think I have once.

So, I guess it's time to come clean. Sigh. I could not put Brown's or Rowling's books down. I was definitely among the first 2% to finish the last 3 Potter books. I finished both Da Vinci and Angels and Demons within 48 hours of opening them.

So really, I was kidding when I said that. I like page-turners, even when I realize I'm not reading great literature.

While recovering from an intestinal blockage last September, I finished "Water for Elephants" in hours. Again, not great literature, but definitely entertaining.

My comment was mostly self-effacing.

Ah. Well it's very distracting... LOL!

As a note: I think that Global Warming (or Global Climate Change, more accurately) is happening, but I am curious (this isn't an accusation, I REALLY am curious), what kind of weather pattern or trend would we need to see in order to be able to falsify the theory/hypothesis?

We have a few falsifiability scenarios for evolution, everyone knows what it'd take to falsify gravity, etc... So yeah, I'm curious about details. =)

GWIAS, please provide your scientific criticism of the greenhouse effect. It seems to me that the physics is fairly straightforward -- CO2 traps radiant heat that would otherwise bounce out of the troposphere. Clearly the large increase in CO2 in the last few centuries is due to human activity; it's easy to estimate how much CO2 we are adding per unit time. It's easy to see that if we continue the troposphere is going to continue to warm up, etc.

So far you have provided nothing but a vague association between religion and climate science, which is just silly.

Nope, read it once, read it again, can't see anything there that ever been on that great catalogue of literary genius, AKA Oprah's Book List.

I recently got hold of a book I consider an instant classic, but for all the wrong reasons: "Turmoil in the Toybox."

http://www.debased.com/content/literature/t/turmoil.html

Not quite as bad as Mein Kampf, but not quite as influential, either.

The very idea of making a list like this is disturbing and smacks of censorship. Maybe a list of the world's most influential books would make sense. But a list of "Books that screwed up the world" is senseless and wrong. Books don't screw up the world, people screw up the world. Ideas are not dangerous until they are applied, and even then, the danger usually stems from misunderstanding and ignorance.

Glen,

hey had a bad day or what ? I wish my English were better, but I'd like to see how good you are at writing in French, German or Spanish, you presomptuous hysterical twot.

Oh to have questionned the objectivity of the great Glen Davidson, what an error ! Look at the amount of vitriol this gets me, even after acknowledging my mistake.

What an absolutely vile person you must be. And you think you're intelligent and this gives you the right to slander people the way you do it in your latest comment.

Why do you wish to create so much animosity on this blog ? This is not a pissing off contest or a competition to show off how impressive your talents are at diminishing people who are trying to have a pleasant time here.

I apologized already, you refused my apologies, isulted me repeatedly, accused me of strawmen where there aren't any at all, picked on my spelling mistakes (I'm not native english speaker, try my best), accused me of amazing stupidity, dishonesty, and dumbness.
All of that for what ? For having acknowledged my ignorance and my prejudices.

You're the one who is just too dumb and stupid and fiercly dishonest. And hysterical on top of it. And presumptuous. And vile. Just plain nasty.

No, Glen D is not having a bad day, he's usually vile, presumptuous, and hysterical.

That being said, most of his arguments were spot on...

"what kind of weather pattern or trend would we need to see in order to be able to falsify the theory/hypothesis [Global Warming]?" - Steven Alleyn

As I understand it, there are multiple statements to test.

- Is the recent increase on CO2 in the atmosphere a result of human activity?

- Will an increase in atmospheric CO2 increase the global average temperature?

- What will happen if the average global temperature increases?

I think it's mostly the third question that's still controversial. These predictions are easily falsifiable. You make the prediction, and wait to see if the future unfolds as predicted. The problem is that we need to test projections before they come to pass. I believe there's an effort to test the premises on which predictions are based, but they'll always suffer to some degree because the changes that will occur are highly dependent on the planet's state during the temperature increase - and, of course, the earth has never been in this state before.

...and there ends my knowledge!

How about the Art of War.

Hey, thanks Jams.

hey had a bad day or what ? I wish my English were better, but I'd like to see how good you are at writing in French, German or Spanish, you presomptuous hysterical twot.

Wow, that has a lot to do with your pathetic attacks, your lack of knowledge, and your general idiocy.

Just another strawman attack from a disgusting worm.

Oh to have questionned the objectivity of the great Glen Davidson, what an error ! Look at the amount of vitriol this gets me, even after acknowledging my mistake.

You didn't have anything except an attack, you mindless dweeb. You didn't question, you simply said "I think your comment lacks objectivity," after some mindless drivel. You remind me of UD, with your inability to make a case, and marked tendency to attack the person.

What an absolutely vile person you must be. And you think you're intelligent and this gives you the right to slander people the way you do it in your latest comment.

I think you have the obligation to be more than a dishonest prick.

Why do you wish to create so much animosity on this blog ? This is not a pissing off contest or a competition to show off how impressive your talents are at diminishing people who are trying to have a pleasant time here.

I only respond as you deserve. Had you been anything but a dishonest a-hole with nothing other than an unsubstantiated and dishonest claim that I had not "been objective", I'd have answered decently.

I apologized already, you refused my apologies, isulted me repeatedly, accused me of strawmen where there aren't any at all, picked on my spelling mistakes

Yes, that was really an honest apology, including this snide strawman (#142):

I knew that many of the ideas in the bible were borrowed from previous cultures and from the greek philosophers, but had always thought that there was also some original work.

Rather than deal with the gross dishonesty of that strawman attack, you try to fob it off as an actual apology. Your mendacity has no end.

(I'm not native english speaker, try my best), accused me of amazing stupidity, dishonesty, and dumbness.
All of that for what ? For having acknowledged my ignorance and my prejudices.

No, for the appalling dishonesty like that above, where you pretend that a snide and stupid strawman is an honest apology. You're beneath contempt.

You're the one who is just too dumb and stupid and fiercly dishonest.

Said with the same level of honest evidence that your previous attacks have included. You haven't made a single argument, or produced a single datum, in favor of your constant lies.

And hysterical on top of it.

I think if I were hysterical I'd be resorting the wholesale dishonesty seen in your posts. Instead, I'm the only one dealing with the actual words, while you're flailing away sans a speck of sense or evidence.

And presumptuous. And vile. Just plain nasty.

My my, it hurts so much to hear baseless charges from an infantile idiot.

All I want is an honest discussion, not a bunch of false charges coming from you, jackass. I didn't attack you, you attacked me, with stupidity and dishonesty aforethought. You haven't let up from either of those appalling attributes since then.

And frankly, your dishonest diatribes do nothing but wear away at any intelligent discussion. I'm probably not going to respond to your idiotic flailings any further on this thread. I've spent too much time dealing with such a dishonest git already.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

negentropyeater,

For more Glen D. Hyde, see the recent "True Monsters" thread:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/true_monsters.php

No, Glen D is not having a bad day, he's usually vile, presumptuous, and hysterical.

The same dishonest, fuckwitted stupidity that I usually attack for both its malice and its distortion of all truth.

Joe Bob marks himself as being as incompetent and buffoonish as the pathetic whiner negentropyeater.

So the stupid liars make alliances with the other stupid lying boors, showing that the true divide is always as I said it was, between the honest and the dishonest. I really don't care a whole lot about whether or person is pro-science or not (though they had better not be anti-science, while accepting the fruits of science), religious or irreligious, or conservative or liberal. Honesty is what matters, since that is what allows the sorting out of the rest.

Joe Bob and negentropyeater reveal no sense of honesty or sensible argumentation at all.

And no, I don't think I'll respond to any other twits who come by to merely snipe, and who have never backed up their previous lies at all. Dishonest fools are not worth the time.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

negentropyeater,

For more Glen D. Hyde, see the recent "True Monsters" thread:

Oh, but I have to hit at SC.

You can see that instead of linking to the beginning of the matter, this dishonest buffoon simply links out of context.

Typical of SC. He can't make a case, he can only quote mine.

Well, like I said, the real divide is between the honest and the dishonest, and SC, negentropyeater, and Joe Bob can't support a single charge that they made. They just bluster dishonestly on, attacking ad hominem in the best IDiot tradition.

No honest person can bear their thoroughly dishonest tactics.

I'll apologize the minute one of you incompetent liars can support any of your charges, except the obviously true one, that I don't suffer fools and liars gladly.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

MikeM "So, I guess it's time to come clean. Sigh. I could not put Brown's or Rowling's books down. I was definitely among the first 2% to finish the last 3 Potter books. I finished both Da Vinci and Angels and Demons within 48 hours of opening them."

So? I liked them, too There's absolutely nothing wrong with seeking pure entertainment. In between books on cosmology and string theory, I read graphic novels and manga, and anyone who thinks less of me for that is quite welcome to lusciously kiss my glorious butt cheeks. I probably make more than them, anyway. ;-)

That being said, most of his arguments were spot on...

I asked him a question in my comment 89 about the bible, and questionned his objectivity (my mistake) : "how would they have looked like if they had been major works ? I think your comment lacks objectivity."

He replied in his comment 111, which was great.

Then I replied in my comment 142 :

"First, you're answering my question (how would they look like). Second, this is completely new to me. I admit my complete ignorance. But then, please point me to further reading on this issue (link ?). You're wetting my appetite !
...
Damnit, still have work to do to get rid of my old Jesuit prejudices. I guess years of endoctrination don't go away that easily."

It's quite clear that I was honest that I admitted immediately my ignorance and my mistake and that I would be pleased to learn more about it (isn't that one of the reasons why we are here, confront ideas and learn, and admit that sometimes we may suffer from prejudices). So why do I get this crazy hysterical reply afterwards ?

look at his comment #149

"See, an honest person would have known about these matters, instead of coming up with strawmen attacks."

What does honesty have to do with knowing these matters ? This is ridiculous.

And then ...

"Complete it may not be, but it's clear that its very thoroughgoing. You keep on with strawman attacks and fatuous reasoning."

Where are the strawman attacks, he's hysterical ? Paranoia or what ?

Then...

"Learn the difference between wetting and whetting, you pompous windbag."

Thx, I try my best, I'm just a stupid frenchman you know.

Then...

"Why do you admit to ignorance, and not your amazing stupidity and dishonesty?"

I just don't know what deserved all this hysterical vitriol, just because I questionned his objectivity and retracted immediately after.
Wow, this guy doesn't even pardon one mistake. What a nasty person.

Now I'm more likely done with the incompetent twits, almost certainly at least until tomorrow.

I did feel the need to respond to SC, since he cannot do anything but attack as dishonestly as he did. He knows that no one is going to sort out the actual issues on that thread, as indeed he never did.

I have to note that he didn't link to a specific post, as I thought he did. I ended up accidentally at one of my posts, not because of his link. I apologize for that honest mistake. Hardly changes anything, no one's going to sort through it all. He didn't, he just lied:

Glen D,
I've been reading your comments on here for a while now, and to the extent that I can recall, have generally enjoyed them and found them reasonable. But reading through this particular thread, I was surprised. Your interlocutors (well, Hematite is the one I have in mind, and I think Moses as well, and possibly Alex - everyone's blending together at this point) were arguing in good faith,

Hematite was not, and you're no more interested in backing up your prevarications than he, or Alex, was. Why is it that liars just back up liars, and with no more intelligence or truth than the original liars used?

And Moses? What's your problem? That I'd actually disagree with him? All I wrote in response to him was this:

The key, I think, is for you to figure out why your mis-named "fuedal (sic)cultures" continue to exist far more in Islamic societies than in, say, Buddhist societies, or even animist societies which are exposed to more modern ideas.
And learn how to spell "feudal" for God's sake.

I can see why you didn't actually back up your dishonest statements, for you just made them up.

ignoring your barrage of insults, and trying to reach a civil truce.

You're so dishonest that you include Moses in this, when I wasn't even arguing with him, save for that one point. And I hadn't laid a "barrage of insults" at him at all. But it's clear that truth isn't your interest, you just want to accuse falsefly.

Hematite simply didn't understand, and he kept repeating lies. I knew he'd never reach any level of understanding, as he did not. He did not accuse in good faith (or at least, not in good faith combined with any meaningful comprehension), he just attacked. Like you did.

Anyway, yeah, SC doesn't like harsh truths, he likes "polite lies," so he tells "polite lies."

See, what's so pathetic about his attacks is that I could tell that he didn't bother to check out the context, or he'd not have made his false charge re Moses. Indeed, that might be considered an "honest mistake" had he not the responsibility to actually see what was at stake, instead of simply attacking me for attacking dishonesty.

Like I said, enough of this nonsense. Just gnats hating those that they falsely malign.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

#159 GWIAS: You have come in here to hijack a thread that had nothing to do with global warming. You have presented no evidence and have responded to evidence presented by others by sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you.

"Begone, foul troll" is the only response you deserve.

"The work of Marx has been potent and maybe deserves to be on these lists because we're still living with the ideological struggle that it was part of...but really, it ought to include both sides, and Adam Smith's work doesn't seem to be here."

That's idiotic.

#159 GWIAS: You have come in here to hijack a thread that had nothing to do with global warming. You have presented no evidence and have responded to evidence presented by others by sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you.

I didn't "hijack" any thread. I simply mentioned some books that belong on the "screwed up the world" list, one of which concerned global warming. It was others who attacked me and thus hijacked the thread, which you would know if you had bothered to read the comments for comprehension.

And I note your hypocrisy in accusing me of not presenting any evidence, when your only "contribution" was "begone foul troll". Oh well, par for the course with death-cultists, I guess.

"Begone, foul troll" is the only response you deserve.

As I said earlier, you know you've won the argument when this is the best the other side can do.

I love reading this blog on biology and creationism, but it's disappointing how when you discuss politics it so rapidly descends into misconceptions and ad hominems.

Ideology is the mind killer.

That's the book I plan to write when I retire. ;-)

I've learned not to earnestly discuss politics with anyone anymore. It's pointless. Everyone has their little side they have to defend to the death. When people ask me what my position is on an issue, and I say it depends on the specific case at hand, I get blank stares.

Books don't kill people, people kill people.

Posted by: Jams

I dare you to walk through the Library of the Unknown University without the Librarian leading the way. Ook!

Nope, read it once, read it again, can't see anything there that ever been on that great catalogue of literary genius, AKA Oprah's Book List.

Posted by: Bride of Shrek

Just imagine my horror when one of mine all time favorite novels, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, was placed on Oprah's Book List.

Glen,

you're the one who makes all the baseless accusations here and creates a very unpleasant and unnecessary animosity. Go and have a wank, maybe that'll help alleviate some of that strawman paranoia you have built up.

Yes, that was really an honest apology, including this snide strawman (#142)

Now he's inventing snide strawman when there aren't any ! Gee, you really are full of yourself aren't you ?

Aw, Ray C. beat me to it.

I was going to suggest that the tenth entry on the first list was Spot Counts From 1 to 10 by Eric Hill (Putnam Juvenile, ISBN-10: 0399240438), but they thought their list was full. :\

Re: A Modest Proposal
Mmm... I love me some baby back ribs!

I don't know about the world, but I read quite a bit of the Bible as a prepubescent, and wow, did it screw me up. Some nights, I couldn't get to sleep; I was so afraid that I'd pissed off God and my dad's fury'd be nothing compared. Wait till Our Father gets home! Gah! :P

As I was getting to the end of your post I was thinking: Where's the Bible? It's probably screwed up the world more than every other book combine and remains the number one best seller of all time.

I should have known you'd think of that and include other religious books as well. But Dianetics and the Book of Mormon have so few followers I'm not sure they belong on the list.

I think a list of the most damaging books in the world could be left with The Bible, The Koran, The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf. Although I'm not sure that last belongs there. It really did not influence a lot of people, the guy who wrote it and acted on what he wrote had a very, very bad influence on the world, but not necessarily the book itself. If more people had read it they might have realized just how much Hitler needed to be stopped.

Wow-

As tuned-in to the antics behind the Discovery Institute as everyone on this blog should be, I am amazed that no one has suggested the book that should be on the top 10 lsit of books that have screwed up the world, although this one really is is screw-up in progess-

The Institutes of Biblical Law - by RJ Rushdooney

Christian Reconstructionism, and it's evil twin sister Dominionism are causing the biggest problems non-delusional citizens will face in our lifetimes. You want the root of the Wedge Document? It's right there scribed by Rushdooney. For an example, see Braytons blog today about a World Nut Daily screed by Willliam Federer, reconstructionist-at-large.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/05/federers_dishonest_framing.p…

Anybody reading this blog not familiar with Rushdooney, or Reconstructionism needs to learn about them.

Wow-

As tuned-in to the antics behind the Discovery Institute as everyone on this blog should be, I am amazed that no one has suggested the book that should be on the top 10 lsit of books that have screwed up the world, although this one really is is screw-up in progess-

The Institutes of Biblical Law - by RJ Rushdooney

Christian Reconstructionism, and it's evil twin sister Dominionism are causing the biggest problems non-delusional citizens will face in our lifetimes. You want the root of the Wedge Document? It's right there scribed by Rushdooney. For an example, see Braytons blog today about a World Nut Daily screed by Willliam Federer, reconstructionist-at-large.

Anybody reading this blog not familiar with Rushdooney, or Reconstructionism needs to learn about them.

Kinsey is on the list because he makes homophobic wingnuts feel uncomfortably icky.

though iirc, there's material in Kinsey's books that would make anyone uneasy...

"If more people had read it they might have realized just how much Hitler needed to be stopped."

Does and evil book get good moral credit for being transparently evil. I don't understand your thinking here. The book is to blame in-so-much as it contributed to the ability of Hilter to gain politicial power and move his followers in a certain direction. You need to count it's influence on those who read it and believed it. Not those who didn't.

Think casual chain and you will understand why. If a corporation writes an instruction manual poorly for a normally safe product and that leads to injuries the the book is a fault. Suppose a misprint on a hair drying manual says "Use in the shower" instead of "Don't use in the shower". Then only those who read and believed the instructions would count as those effected by the bad manual. Sure, had lots of intelligent people read the manual and did something about it then less people would be electrocuted. However, that's not to the credit of the bad instruction manual anymore than a murderer being put in jail gets credit for stirring the sheriff out of his chair.

As you can see, I disagree with those claiming that books can be found at fault.

You are out of your mind if you think Adam Smith belongs on the same list with Karl Marx. Smith's thoughts on foreign trade, supply and demand, and the division of labor are still influential today and he single handedly invented to modern discipline of economics. Marx developed nothing but a pseudo science with utter contempt for individual rights and democracy. PZ you should really stick to science and religion because you are boring and ignorant.

Does and evil book get good moral credit for being transparently evil.

we've had a similar argument about "Expelled"

negentropyeater, don't let Glen bother you. In my experience, once he's taken exception to something the discussion is over and you'll hear nothing but insults. It's a shame, he says good stuff when he's not yelling at someone.

In "State and Revolution" Lenin essentially reiterated what Marx wrote in "The Civil War in France" -- that is, that the working class must "smash" the existing state and not try to simply wield it as-is for their own purpose.

Marx was the first, and only, person to correctly and fully develop the labor theory of value. He did not simply take it as-is from Smith and Ricardo. Marx was the one to understand the difference between "labor" and "labor power." All previous economists failed to understand how profit could be made if there had been a "fair" (market value) exchange since if true equivalents were exchanged then no value could be created.

Marx understood the key difference between "use value" and "exchange value." The capitalist hires the worker by exchanging an equivalent of money that is the fair value of the worker's time, but gets to keep the full product of the worker, hence a capitalists propensity to lengthen the working day, speed up production, etc., in an effort to extract as much surplus value as possible from the laborer.

For a clear, concise discussion, please see Marx's "Value, Price and Profit" and "Wage Labor and Capital."

The vast majority of comments relating to Marx in this thread show ignorance of his work and its meaning, historically, economically, socially, etc. This is, of course, completely understandable. Most people are as enthralled with anti-communism as they are with religion and use the same kinds of arguments against Marx, Engles, Lenin and Trotsky as the religious use against Darwin. They hate it and dont' understand it because they don't like what they see as the implications of it.

The real communist boogie man is Stalin, and his ideological followers, (Mao, Castro, etc.).

People use their legitimate horror at Stalinists and believe that because the Russian revolution was betrayed (see Trotsky: "The Revolution Betrayed") and the best parts of it destroyed not only by internal contradictions but also from external, bourgeois pressures, that therefore "Marx and communism was proven wrong."

That's like saying that because something doesn't work the first time you try it that it can't work. Where would science be if all scientists took that attitude?

While it's true that Marx believed that in general socialism would come out of the most advanced capitalist countries, he also came to see that the impetus for world-wide socialist revolution could come from a generally more backward society that had a radicalized nascent working class (such as Russia). Lenin understood this and that is why he developed the Bolshevik party. Lenin knew that without successful revolutions in the advanced countries of Europe that the Russian revolution was doomed.

The primary reason for the degeneration of the Russian revolution was Stalin's "theory" of "Socialism in One Country." This was antithetical to Marx's vision of socialism only working as an international system. It was this theoretical capitulation of Stalin to the fatigue of the Russian people that ultimately lead to the demise of the former Sovient Union.

To echo a couple of comments above, religious works seem to be an interesting special case of 'evil books'. In my understanding, the holy texts themselves are not very notable for making solid arguments about anything, as compared to any of the philosophical/economic works on the lists up above. I don't think there's much in them that would warrant scholarly study if they didn't happen to be adopted by major religions.

This leads me to interesting speculation about how important the specifics of holy texts are for the religion which adopts them; picking and choosing passages to emphasise is common behaviour even in 'literalist' groups. I wonder if Christianity or Islam would have turned out noticably differently if their holy texts had been switched for other vague and quote-minable documents.

I have less religious education than most of the readers here; I'm a lifelong atheist and am only interested in religion as an abstract. I offer this as 'thinking out loud' in case anyone would like to comment on it.

I'm pretty bummed at the treatment Adam Smith is getting here. He was neither the arch-capitalist tool some have made him out to be, nor the closet socialist others have. Instead, he merely wrote an "inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations." His was a scientific treatment on how nations grow wealthy, and he recognized some fundamental things about the way economies work.

Among them was the idea that open markets tend to create order in the absence of any central plan; and that self-interest acts as a mechanism that turns private vices into public virtues "as if led by an invisible hand."

It's been said that Darwin took the idea of natural selection from Smith and other economists. If so, to me he deserves a lot more credit than has been given on this board.

nice summary, Gene.

thanks.

They forgot Thomas Paine. Losers.

I simply mentioned some books that belong on the "screwed up the world" list

aren't you with the morons claiming "the evidence isn't conclusive"?

if that's the case, how on earth can you claim that a book written about it has "screwed up the world"?

...unless you wanted to hijack a thread to spew your denialism.

the reason people jumped on you is that it was quite obvious what you were trying to do.

I vote shenanigans.

Ok, since some of this has become a Most Dangerous Books list...

Aristotle's Second Book of Poetics (as seen in The Name of the Rose)
The Monster Book of Monsters and Tom Riddle's Diary (from the Harry Potter series)
Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (as seen in the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies)
Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Kingdom, full-sized version, as there is a crushing hazard.
Sex by Madonna. (This thing would easily be mistaken for a bomb by the Boston authorities, and well, it was, figuratively...)
The Antimatter Book of Antimatter (Not to be read by people made of matter)
It by Stephen King. (I got a really bad paper cut reading this book. I still have nightmares about that paper cut.)

GWIAS,
At the risk of feeding a troll, evidence for global warming is not hard to find. It's not my field, so I did a simple google search for a reputable source: "global warming evidence harvard site:.edu" picked up this: http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2001/03.22/09-mccarthy.html. There, now you have some evidence - but you know there is plenty of evidence anyway.

Down our neck of the woods, icebergs broken from the antarctic ice-shelves have been sighted floating past New Zealand, and entire species of animals that live near the retreating snowlines are simply vanishing themselves. This isn't a trivial fluctuation. In Australia, water-use restrictions, once a temporary measure, are now permanent. Global warming is evident to anyone with an eye and half a brain.

The onus is now on you to support your position that GWIAS.
We are waiting.

Gene,

You make some good points concerning Marx's analysis of capitalism. I would even add to the list of impressive Marxist writings his own insightful work on alienation and Lenin's Imperialism, a classic of great relevance at present.

But as far as revolutionary programs go, you seem to have Marx confused with Bakunin and Lenin confused with Kropotkin. I have a policy of not arguing complex points that rely on extensive textual citations in blog threads - a policy to which I will adhere. I have already linked to Bakunin's "God and the State" elsewhere on this blog, and now I'll link to Kropotkin's letters to Lenin. I welcome disagreement with the anarchists, but if perhaps I've led a few people to check out what they have to say, I've done my thing.

Kropotkin's letters to Lenin in 1920:

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/kropotlenindec2…

http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/kropotlenindec2…

come now, people, you are all forgetting the single most dangerous book of the late 20th century.

....

The Joy of Sex, by Alex Comfort (1st ed. 1972).

Is there any book that's close? This is the book, after all, that launched the culture wars still being fought in the US. Not only did it teach generations of young men about the benefits of being good in bed, it did so publicly!

aren't you with the morons claiming "the evidence isn't conclusive"?

More name-calling. Is that the best you've got?

And the evidence is not conclusive, by any stretch of the imagination.

if that's the case, how on earth can you claim that a book written about it has "screwed up the world"?

It has given us such disasters as the Kyoto Accord and the carbon trading fiasco, as well as being used as an excuse for power-hungry politicians to feed ever-expanding government. I would call that pretty screwed-up.

...unless you wanted to hijack a thread to spew your denialism.

Unlike you hijacking a thread to spew your warm-mongering. And yes, I deny faith-based global warming, just as I deny any religion.

the reason people jumped on you is that it was quite obvious what you were trying to do.

It was obvious I was stating facts, except to those lacking in reading comprehension skills.

I vote shenanigans.

And I should care about your vote because...???

"Most people are as enthralled with anti-communism as they are with religion and use the same kinds of arguments against Marx, Engles, Lenin and Trotsky as the religious use against Darwin. ... The real communist boogie man is Stalin, and his ideological followers, (Mao, Castro, etc.)."

You can't get much more paleo than the "good Lenin, bad Stalin" apologetics.

Marx was an enemy of trade unionism - and therefore an enemy of the labor movement, which he viewed as a hindrance to his millenarian Utopian vision. Not only was Marx the worst thing to happen to the labor movement he was also the worst thing to happen to socialism - which was only corrected when European social democracy threw out most of what "Marxist" movements actually took from Marx. (And that happened not in the 90s with the 'Third Way' but much earlier. See Sheri Berman's book The Primacy of Politics.)

As for Lenin, his vanguardism, glorification of ruthlessness, and anti-deviationism is really in the vein of Georges Sorel, Giovanni Gentile, Kita Ikki, and other then-contemporary ideologues of tyranny, including Stalin and Trotsky. (Again, see Berman.)

And the evidence is not conclusive

Back that up. The floor is yours - present your evidence. I'm actually interested in knowing how you have convinced yourself of this.

some earlier posts have claimed that the bible is not on the list or that it should be on there. how is that right to say? Power hungry groups of people that use religion as an excuse to kill or commit inhumane crimes can not be a valid representation of everyone who follows the faith. Those people that kill in the name of thier religion do not understand the faith and deserve to be shamed for all of history for making a false representation of everyone else who follows that particular faith. It is wrong to say that the bible should be on a list of books that ruined the world. And I may be stating the obvious here, but just take it into thought.

Books don't screw up the world. People screw up the world.

Many of you guys seem to believe that books have souls and that they have the occult power to act at a distance. In my experience, books don't read themselves. For example, the Bible that had an effect on history was always the Bible-as-interpreted, not some mysterious Ur-object radiating power across the centuries. From this perspective, there have been and are many, many Bibles because there have been many interpretive communities. Similarly, people on the internet associate Marx with the Communists even though he was also considered a founder by, for example, the German socialist party which, whatever you think of it, has hardly been a malevolent force in European history.

Scientist rightly bitch when people who know little about biology presume to make judgments about evolutionary theory or genetic engineering. By the same rights, scientist who have only the most limited understanding of philosophy and history ought to consider that they may be making right fools of themselves when they assume that they understand what is in Plato or Heidegger or Adam Smith because they read two paragraphs about 'em some place. I am particularly amused to note that nobody in the 203 or so comments on this thread seems to be aware that serious students of Machiavelli take that author's Discourses on Livy as a far better window on his thinking than his rather sensational and topical Prince. Folks, there is a whole world outside of the sciences. If you only knew....

Umm, just to clarify...I was not saying Adam Smith's work belongs on a 10 worst list. Quite the contrary, I was saying that neither Marx nor Smith belong on these bad, awful, useless lists.

GWIAS,
Alright you assclown, several people have asked you to back up your assertions regarding the "scam" you keep ranting about, why havent you done so?

"It was obvious I was stating facts, except to those lacking in reading comprehension skills."

what "facts" might those be?

"And most damning of all, it is impossible to take these lists seriously when they've left off the works that have been overwhelmingly influential, incredibly widely read, and have led billions of people into delusion and stupidity: the Christian bible and the Koran."

That statement only holds true if you count the 'Dark Ages' as being screwed up. After all, isn't the medieval period commonly referred to as the 'golden age of faith' in Western Europe, and the Middle East?

On second thoughts, it appears that a large proportion of the Middle East has yet to emerge from its 'golden age'.

"I am particularly amused to note that nobody in the 203 or so comments on this thread seems to be aware that serious students of Machiavelli take that author's Discourses on Livy as a far better window on his thinking than his rather sensational and topical Prince." - Jim Harrison

In defense of 203 comments, the current topic surrounds the power of books rather than the power of authors. Though, admittedly, the power of readers and authors has been slowly creeping in - as they tend to do.

As you've noted though, we've been weak on a definition of "screwed-up". It's been mentioned that scale of influence is a factor, but not much about how one goes about valuing a book's effect. Screwed-up, to me, implies a negative valuation, but other than that, the means of valuation seems completely subjective. Here, I'll take an arbitrary stab at valuation, inspired by Umberto Eco:

A book's positive value is measured by the number of books inspired by it over time, and doubly so by the number of books inspired by those books over time.

From the article in question:

"Wiker's Ph.D. is in "Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University" -- but I'm not really sure what it has to do with literary criticism or historical causation."

'Theological Ethics'?
Now there's an oxymoron if ever I've seen one!
That explains everything.

Glen D seems to be suffering from some issue with the word "honest" and its permutations. It seems that most of his posts contain an inordinate amount of accusations of other posters being liars.

To wit (#177):
"... a dishonest prick."
"... a dishonest a-hole with nothing other than an unsubstantiated and dishonest claim"
"Yes, that was really an honest apology"
"... the gross dishonesty"
"Your mendacity has no end."
"...the appalling dishonesty"
"... you pretend that a snide and stupid strawman is an honest apology"
"... the same level of honest evidence"
"... your constant lies"
"... wholesale dishonesty seen in your posts"
"All I want is an honest discussion, not a bunch of false charges coming from you"
" you attacked me, with stupidity and dishonesty aforethought"
"...your dishonest diatribes"
"...such a dishonest git"

Go outside already.

GWIAS:

The three most important greenhouse gases are CO₂, CH₄, and H₂O. Carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere by volume, methane makes up 0.0002%, and water has a variable concentration to a maximum of 2% at 20°C. These three gases are largely responsible for the Earth's habitable surface. It is easy enough to calculate (though I won't do it here unless you ask) that the average surface temperature of the Earth without greenhouse gases would be -18°C; the measured average temperature on the other hand is 15°C, a difference of over 30°C.

Water's presence in the atmosphere is limited by temperature, so I'll ignore it for the rest of this post.

Both CO₂ and CH₄ experience natural variations according to Earth's short-term (ie., 20,000yr, 40,000yr, and 100,000yr) climate cycles. Carbon dioxide varies between 200 and 280ppmV, and methane varies between 400 and 700ppbV according to the Vostok ice cores. We entered a period of high concentration 20kyr BP, so concentration is expected to gradually fall.

However, actual concentrations in human history have not fallen. The global concentration of carbon dioxide has increased to 360ppmV, and the concentration of methane has increased to 1750ppbV. Both increases coincide closely with the start of the industrial revolution.

There's my evidence, taken from my atmospheric science text. I eagerly await any rebuttals you have to offer.

More name-calling. Is that the best you've got?

when have you ever indicated you deserve more?

It has given us such disasters as the Kyoto Accord and the carbon trading fiasco

it has?

causal link, please.

show me how that single book resulted in the Kyoto Accord.

then you'll have to show me how the Kyoto Accord "screwed up the world"

you have your work cut out for you.

Unlike you hijacking a thread to spew your warm-mongering.

warm-mongering???

ROFLMAO.

projection at its finest.

denialism in a nutshell.

In addition:

I didn't "hijack" any thread. I simply mentioned some books that belong on the "screwed up the world" list, one of which concerned global warming.

GWIAS, I propose that by including a book on global warming in your list of books that screwed up the world on your list, using the pseudonym that you do, on a blog known to support the mainstream scientific community, your dominant intention was to incite debate and create a forum for your ideas. Do you deny this?

Of books that help fuck up this planet, the bible and the koran are really in the super class, making all others insignificant.

But really, books are harmless in themselves, it is the ruthless bastards using the ideas that are the problem, like priests and other pedophiles abusing their status and influence in the community.

The real communist boogie man is Stalin, and his ideological followers, (Mao, Castro, etc.).

He may have been somewhat more educated and intelligent, but Lenin could be just as brutal as Stalin:

Lenin's Hanging Order, 6/11/1918:

Comrades! The insurrection of five kulak districts should be pitilessly suppressed. The interests of the whole revolution require this because 'the last decisive battle' with the kulaks is now under way everywhere. An example must be demonstrated.

1. Hang (and make sure that the hanging takes place in full view of the people) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers.
2. Publish their names.
3. Seize all their grain from them.
4. Designate hostages in accordance with yesterday's telegram.
Do it in such a fashion that for hundreds of kilometres around the people might see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle to death the bloodsucking kulaks.

Telegraph receipt and implementation.

Yours, Lenin.

Find some truly hard people

Phoenix Woman, #41: You go girl!

Colugo #30: That is indeed a list of really frightening crap.

Wonderful comments...very insightful all. Wow, some of you are bright.

And that the godless can still discern where morality lies with such fine aplomb...'tis nothing short of amazing.

Is it just me or is top 10 list of books that screwed up the world seem kinda anti-intellectual? Seems to me to be a modern day version of book burning.

A book just contains facts and opinions that can be right or wrong. What a person does with those ideas seems to be what screws up the world. Alot of people 1930's Germany read Mein Kampf and followed Hitler, while alot of people read it nowadays and just get horrified. The power to screw up the world lies with the readers, not the book.

In short, books don't kill people, people kill people.

Feynmaniac wrote:
"In short, books don't kill people, people kill people."

Some books inspire people to kill other people, and give them a sense of justification for doing so.

@ #215
I recall someone did mention the Discourses -#49, was it? And as for that, the list (which is emphasizing books, not authors) doesn't include his Discourses, which is probably why they're not being discussed.
But anyway, it seems people are mostly talking about whichever books they seem to know most about. And I'm particularly amused to note, as you might say, that you automatically assume no one here has read or studied this stuff, simply because it's a sience blog...

That's all I'll say, I've got a Humanities final to study for...

Once again they forget the works of Confucius. How surprised yon Westerners will be once the hordes of pupils of the Great Teacher descend upon you!

GWIAS,
While I am pleased to see you provide the Hansen quote, it doesn't back your assertion that he thinks lying is ok.
You have not provided any evidence at all of any scam to do with Global warming. You have been given citations from textbooks and research providing reasonable mechanisms for global warming.

My examples to you included evidence of global warming that are pretty hard for *anyone* to ignore, such as the antarctic shelf breaking up and retreating snow lines.
However much is being spent on research, don't you realise that the scientists would be getting paid anyway. They are not selling a product, they are selling their expertise in evaluating data. If global warming did not exist, they would get paid for analysing something else. If global warming exists, but turns out not to be man-made, they would still be studying it, because man-made or not, it will affect our economy and lives.

Scientists don't have a vested interest in lying. But corporations invested in fossil fuels and governments have a vested interest in the status quo. If you are looking for a motive for dishonesty, you won't find it in science as a whole. Even when individuals do the wrong thing, the science system as a whole (Big Science, if you will) promotes honest assessment of real data, and anyone who breaks that rule is out on their ear.

@96 (damn I'm late in my response)

Yeah I'm savvy. "Screw up the world" == "let's burn them!"

GWIAS, please, cut the crap. Evidence has been posted in favor of GW, as you have requested, and more is available for you to view without the help of others here. That is, if you are honestly interested and can type into a field at google.com. The evidence does not need to be repeatedly posted over and over by every person here arguing with you for any single person to be taken seriously. All you are doing is latching onto the names thrown in your direction, assuming the mantle of smugness simply for receiving said names, and self-reassuring that whatever argument you haven't made yet must be right because you got called a name.

So come correct: what's your evidence? Obviously evolution's supporters aren't so afraid of being labeled Nazi enablers by well-known former administration types in bad movies that they won't come forth with their evidence. So amid all the fire coming at you, do you not feel compelled to present your case anyhow? Or are you going to pursue the guise of the creationists, and keep talking about all this supposedly earth-shattering evidence the evil GW supporters are suppressing, and that you cannot divulge any of it lest it be purged from the mind of humanity forever? At least be self-respecting enough to put up a real fight. No offense to the women here...but you fight like a girl.

Oh, and that GW-as-religion crack? Projection much?

BlueIndependent, if I were you, I'd avoid saying anything that has to be prefaced with "No offense to the women here".

No offense to any sexist turds here, but you sound like a bigot.

And you're a bit too sensitive.

Chill out.

The primary reason for the degeneration of the Russian revolution was Stalin's "theory" of "Socialism in One Country." This was antithetical to Marx's vision of socialism only working as an international system. It was this theoretical capitulation of Stalin to the fatigue of the Russian people that ultimately lead to the demise of the former Sovient Union.

Well, I would say that Stalin's anti-Marxist "theory" of "socialism in one country" was a consequence, rather than the cause, of the failure of the revolution. He made it up to justify the Russian State after the revolution had been contained to one country.

Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, etc. were all quite aware that if the revolution were to succeed it would have to be world-wide. That it started in Russia was due to the peculiar circumstances in Europe at that particular time, but it almost did spread throughout Europe. The German Revolution of 1918-1919 put a stop to WW I, but it fizzled out when the newly empowered German "socialists" liquidated the German revolutionaries. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution

Is GWIAS still here? People have to have noticed by now that he never posts anything of any value, just trolls around for insults, gets them, then says "Ahahaha! You insulted me! This clearly proves that global warming is a religion and you all like to do sex with Al Gore and I am a genius!!1111!eleventy *wankwankwankwank*"

Seriously. Leave him alone and he'll eventually piss off.

Re: "Mein Kampf". Wow, talk about simply not getting it. It wasn't the book that screwed up the world, it was the guy who wrote the book (and his cabal of cronies). Germans didn't need to read "Mein Kampf" to be indoctrinated with Nazi ideology because it was everywhere around them, and fact is that most of them didn't. Yes, millions of copies were distributed after the Nazis gained power, but guess what? They handed them out for free, and NOT having the Fuehrer's little book standing prominently on your bookshelf made you look suspicious. So people got their free copy, put in on the bookshelf, and never read it. Sadly, they still believed the ideology hidden within those pages. Kind of like with the Bible, really.

GWIAS gets namecalling because namecalling is all he deserves. Indeed, as Herr Stroszek notes @238, it's more than he deserves.

In a generic context, GWIAS simply is not (at least on the topic of his obsession) worth engaging seriously. In the specific context of this comments thread, he is not merely championing a foolish and unsupported idea, he is also a threadjacking troll. In the first context he would deserve pity; in the second, contempt and derision as well. So, yes, if one wants to respond to him at all, reminding him that he is a gobshite is about as far as one need go.

It's interesting. He has learned to parrot some of the shibboleths of rational thought (creationism is bad! down with woo!). Perhaps he even sincerely believes that he believes those things. Yet his obsession, his ceaseless muttering, is itself woo in the classic paradigm.

Indeed, GWIAS is remarkably similar to creationists. Unscrupulous quote-mining? Check. The "accepters of the scientific consensus as religious fundamentalists" trope? Check. The scientists themselves as conspirators hell-bent on hiding The Truth? Check. Indeed, GWIAS goes the creationists one better. The world climatology community is peddling lies for money. Evolutionists, by contrast, are only in it for the Trophy Wives. If for nothing else, we owe GWIAS gratitude for serving as a perfect illustration that AGW denialism is creationism translated into weather.

Hopefully he will grow bored here and feck off to Deltoid. I bear Tim Lambert no ill will and wouldn't wish GWIAS on him and his readership; but surely this particular subspecies of Homunculus subpontinus is more in his line than PZ's.

Mrs Tilton, re #240, nice concise post. I find GWIAS not worth the energy to even engage, much less read. My internal filter drops him and responses to him, which made the comments on the this thread both shorter and more interesting. I read yours because it is the latest post, and I tend to read that first, then play catch up backwards (liberal arts major, cannot help it), and to be honest, I read your posts because they are well written. GWIAS is not even fun to play with, like Kenny or the like. Nor does he even tangentially contribute to the thread, he is a one string guitar playing a one note song, and badly at that.

Ciao

#200

"Marx was the first, and only, person to correctly and fully develop the labor theory of value."

There is no "correct" labor theory of value. It's stupid. The amount of labor put into something does not determine it's value as proven by your post. Otherwise mud pies would be just as valuable as apple pies.

The rest of Marx's theory is just as idiotic, and frankly dangerous. Pick up Thomas Sowell's "Marxism" to get the full lo-down on why Marxist economic theory is just plain stupid. He's a former Marxist who understands Marxian hogwash but became educated about good economic science and rejected his former Marxism.

"But really, books are harmless in themselves, it is the ruthless bastards using the ideas that are the problem, like priests and other pedophiles abusing their status and influence in the community."

Yeah, and I guess you think "books aren't helpful in themselves" too then. I guess in your world "Origin of Species" didn't have any influence in the world. After all it's just and inert book.

Do you think your argumentation here is useful? Do you really think that your opponents believe that books sprout legs and arms then go do the killing themselves?

"And the evidence is not conclusive"

"Back that up."

Here you go: Don Easterbrook

Anyone who wants to learn more about why Marx's economics is flawed should also read http://mises.org/etexts/EconReasoning.pdf. It was written for use at the high school level, just about right for many of Marx's disciples. It starts with simple self-evident axioms and develops conclusions through application of logic, a methodology not used much by Marx or Keynes.

#215: Many of you guys seem to believe that books have souls and that they have the occult power to act at a distance.

Haha, you should really read James Morrow's The Last Witchfinder: bibliographic possession by Newton's Principia.

Morrow is an excellent satirist of religion, for any who don't know.

The "Books don't do this and that - people do this and that" nitpicking is so lame.

Isn't it obvious enough that "Books That Screwed Up the World" is short for "Books that (were used to) spread ideas that incited actions that screwed up the world" (or something like that)?

PZ said:

The work of Marx has been potent and maybe deserves to be on these lists because we're still living with the ideological struggle that it was part of...but really, it ought to include both sides, and Adam Smith's work doesn't seem to be here.

===========================================================

You are trying to perpetuate a false equivalence between Smith and Marx. This is somewhat ironic since you have done good work in demolishing arguments for the equivalence of Evolution and ID/Creationism in school curricula.

FW (#247) - you're right. I think the unspoken extension of the title is something like "The top ten books that screwed up the world because people took what they said seriously and acted to propagate the ideas therein."

Speaking of global warming, here's another poll to crash (Star-Trib).

Is global warming science 'squishy'? Yes is currently winning.

Do your thing, Pharyngulites!

What this thread is really about is the cause of individual and mass human behavior. And we barely understand this.

1. Instructional/imitative-centered: Books, as repositories of instructional information, are powerful direct influences on behavior.

Alternatively, people select those books, parts of books, and interpretations that satisfies a need.

2. Ecological optimization: people strive to satisfy basic material needs, namely food and sex, resulting in optimization in specific environments given particular technologies.

3. Fitness calculator: people strive to maximize fitness, hence behavior is a function of fitness maximization in local environment.

4. Phylogenetic legacy: people act according to universal organizing mental structures and behavioral tendencies evolved in the distant past, regardless of whether these are currently adaptive.

5. Proximate physiology: The proximate neurophysiological impact of diet, disease, population density results in differential individual and group aggression, acquisitiveness, sex drive etc.

Of course this is not exhaustive. Then are various combinations of these. I haven't used familiar contemporary terms (cultural materialism, memetics, dual inheritance, evolutionary psychology etc. because similar ideas pop in the social sciences - and even behavioral biological sciences - again and again.) Obviously, it's very complicated.

@#107 --
1st, Foucault is not properly considered a deconstructionist, his work fits better in the structualist tradition (he and Derrida were not on the same page, of course Derrida was contra the world). 2nd, looking back to the person WAY up the thread who said that bad readers do more damage than bad books, while there was an unfortunate period where people tried to scientize the humanities by injecting a quasi-deconstructionist bent into the hard sciences, I would think that would be more against our bias toward the hard sciences as the only "real" scholarship.
Derrida and Foucault are not WVO Quine's ontologic relativity, where the very nature of the world is inherently individualized and thus incommensurable, rather they promote the recognition that our interactions with the world are coded by our specific locations in space, time, history, gender, race, sex, religion, etc. On such an account it is not only that we are within a world together, but that we are inextricably in that world together.
Yes, Derrida is a pretentious pain in the ass to read, however, his investigation into how we constitute and are constituted by a world lays a foundation with which we might begin to undo some of the revolting and insidious hierarchies of privilege within which we live. Foucault's "genealogies" of power encourage a questioning of the sort of governmental power which lands us in a desert war and whittles away at our freedoms.
The current work being done with Foucauldian and Derridian (which is ultimately from Heidegger - whose ideas are better than his politics) philosophies focuses on our ability to live well, in a pluralistic society. The notion that we must talk to one another and that none of us are privy to an absolute truth, neither encourages mental masturbation nor ruins science. (See Jean-Luc Nancy, Giorgio Agamben, Bernard Stiegler, Judith Butler for some current examples)
[ /rant ]

Seriously though, wtf do you all have against philosophers? I mean, given the amount of crap I get for being in an unimportant discipline, there sure are a lot of really dangerous thinkers.
sneaks off to pet her philosophy books, keeping an eye out for sharp seashells

As for books that screwed up the world, I have to throw in a bid for almost everything they made me read in high school, especially Steinbeck's The Pearl talk about books that can kill, lethally boring, and I had to read it twice.

Well, I have yet to see the Epic of Gilgamesh, since it inspired the biblical flood account of Noah. Bad, but some of us have futures for Mount Ararat., However, the endorsement of Floods may have led to Katrina.;) Hypatia, ease off on Steinbeck. He had some good instincts and a heroine's name that I can still remember, Rose of Sharon.

Tom

Re Brian Macker#244

Don Easterbrook is emeritus professor of geology, specialising, according to his website in geomorphology; glacial geology; Pleistocene geochronology; environmental and engineering geology. He appears to have 1 (one) published journal article on causes of climate: Easterbrook, D.J., 2005, Causes and effects of abrupt, global, climate changes and global warming: Geological Society of America. Here is the start of the abstract, with a few notes of mine added in brackets:

As shown in the Greenland GISP2 ice cores, late Pleistocene abrupt temperature fluctuations occurred in only
20-100 years [Greenland ice cores do not by any means reflect global temperatures. A researcher who attempts to use the first as an adequate measure of the second is at best an ignoramus in the field.], clearly not caused by atmospheric CO2 because they occurred thousands of years before atmospheric CO2 levels began to rise. [Nobody, of course, pretends that all climate change is due to changes in levels of carbon dioxide or other gases.]
Global temperature curves show a cool reversal from ~1950 to ~1977) [False: global termperatures were approximately flat for this period.], inferring [He means implying.] that
global temperatures then were not driven by atmospheric CO2. [Current GCMs models take into account both greenhouse gas levels and other factors, both natural (changes in solar radiation), and anthropogenic (e.g. sulphate aerosols) Solar irradiance curves almost exactly match the
global temperature curve and satellite data suggest that the earth has received increased solar radiation over the past
25 years, coinciding with the present 25-year warm cycle. [Completely false - see for example http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic-art/235402/109622/Monthly-sat….]

So here is a man with only tangentially relevant expertise, who makes several elementary errors in the abstract. Which is more likely - that Easterbrook is out of his depth in a new field, or that the whole of climate science is an evil conspiracy?

Re #256. Sorry, "causes of climate" should read "causes of recent climate change."

Oh, and Don Easterbrook did get a lot of media coverage;

http://mediamatters.org/items/200705020001
http://mediamatters.org/items/200703150012#20070502
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfCFZ7zNWbs

Is it only an impression or it seems some of the American media is hungry for denialists ? It's exactly the same thing again as with creationists.

By the way, for those who missed it :

"March the warmest on record over world land surfaces"
http://www.physorg.com/news127720375.html

Not puzzled by both the inclusion of Mead on this list, but mildly confused at the dismissive opinion.

Mead's work has been subject to criticism and renewed scrutiny of late, but frankly the basic conclusions of CoAiS -- that cultural attitudes towards sexuality and adolescence differ -- has been relegated to the status of mental wallpaper. Several other shocking (Shocking!) ideas she introduced to the world -- that concerning sex, people say one thing and do quite another, that cultural parenting norms influences adult culture -- seem similarly banal. She got some of the details wrong, but it's testament to the quality of her work that it's still discussed.

Mead's observations and conclusions pissed off the American cadillac-and-beehive-hairdo set in the 1950s. So did Kinsey's. Dr. Benjamin Spock (who was Margaret Mead's pediatrician) is another fundy christian shibboleth.

Re #258 negentropyeater - I followed your link and got a nasty surprise. Here was the first advert linked from the article!

Free Book on Prophecy - Are the latest devastating weather patterns connected to the end-time?
www.the-end.com

Oh, I think all the climatologists are out of their depth in a new field.

A list like this can't be taken remotely seriously without the Koran and the Bible. Period.

Includse the bible and the coran as well they well deserve to be in the top of the list.

"You seem to consider Adam Smith as the opposite of Marx.
It is not. In fact, if you read Adam Smith, which is something free market absolutists obviously haven't, you'd find that he's not one of them, and that Marx agreed with him more often than not."

Yeah, and if you actually read some "free market absolutists" like Herbert Spencer and Milton Friedman then you'd find out they are not "one of them" either. Funny how that works.

Oh, I think all the climatologists are out of their depth in a new field. - Brian Macker

Only a complete ignoramus on the issue could believe that climatology is itself a new field. Anyone interested (I am sure Brian Macker and GWIAS will not be among them) can get an excellent account of climate science history at http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html.

Many of the experts who have developed the broad climate science consensus that anthropogenic climate change is real, and an urgent problem, have decades of experience in the field, which Easterbrook does not. Incidentally, we should note that the publication of Easterbrook's article demolishes the claim that "climate change sceptics" are not allowed to publish. Other, better qualified sceptics (e.g. Roy Spencer) also publish in refereed journals. But the cutting edge science is all being done within the broad climate science consensus, not because anyone has decreed this, but because the disconnected jabs sceptics aim at the consensus have so far suggested few if any fruitful lines of work.

Incidentally, a useful new term (from http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/how-to-cook-a-gra… "global warming inactivists". Covers all from those who deny global temperatures have risen through those who deny this is down to us, to those who say it's too expensive or too late to do anything about it.

From a Regnery perspective, I wonder why they go straight from Rousseau to Mead without looking at Jules Michelet's "La Socière", which was undoubtedly a major influence on the feminism they so deplore. Michelet's historical work on the witch-hunts and trials led to claims that "nine million wimmin" were burned as witches during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, when even moderate scholars say the number was only around a hundred thousand.

In this context, Matilda Joslyn Gage's 1893 "Woman, Church and State" is also a strange omission. Drawing on the work of Michelet, it was this book that popularised the idea of nine million "wimmin" being murdered. Then there is Marija Gimbutas' "The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe" which might be too recent for Wiker but undoubtedly led to the rejection of Christianity by so many young women who were once the faith's backbone.