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From the archives

Chancing to Rise

Our evolving relationship with China

Snow Globe

Lisa Moore’s latest

Clock Watching

The nuclear threat lingers still

Science Fights Back

But is it really television that nurses our ignorance, or society more broadly?

John Doyle

Media Mediocrity — Waging War Against Science: How the Television Makes Us Stoopid!

Richard Zurawski

Fernwood Publishing

152 pages, softcover

ISBN: 9781552664001

Richard Zurawski is a very angry man. He is also deeply concerned. How concerned? Here is his statement a few pages into this blistering book:

Science has been systematically attacked, both from within and from without. And the attack has overwhelmed our society in a matter of decades and undermined centuries of progress and enlightenment … It is not an overstatement to say we are on the threshold of losing five centuries of progress and regressing backwards to a time when fear, superstition and vested interests, instead of science and scientific facts, dominate.

He goes on to say that while we are not quite at the point of burning scientists at the stake, there are ongoing witch hunts against scientists.

You get the picture and...

John Doyle is the television critic for The Globe and Mail and has covered two World Cup tournaments and one European championship for the paper. His book Beautiful Game: Travels in Search of Soccer’s Small Wars and Big Peace will be published by Doubleday Canada in 2010.

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