A Review of _Paranoid Science_ now available

I recently got to review Antony Alumkal’s Paranoid Science: The Christian Right’s War on Reality for Contemporary Sociology. In this book, Alumkal, a professor of the sociology of religion at Iliff School of Theology, identifies patterns of paranoid thinking in conservative Christians’ engagement with four issues: evolution, LGBTQ+ rights, bioethics, and climate change. Readers interested in any of those topics will find that the chapters devoted to them stand alone well, while those of us interested in broader questions about science and religion will find the book an illuminating read about how conservative Christian organizations work.

Above, the cover of Alumkal’s Paranoid Science.

“When it comes to dealing with science,” he writes, “perhaps the key issue is that ease with which these individuals deny reality when they find it undesirable” (p. 193). That statement could be just as accurately applied, I fear, when it comes to history, economics, and politics.

Rebecca