The Politically Incorrect Guides

In general, the John Wiley “For Dummies” books, with their trademarked yellow and black cover, are uniformly good, and can pretty much be depended upon for good beginner information on whatever subject they cover. Wiley clearly tries to maintain a consistent standard in these books.

After reading the excellent “Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East” (published by Regnery Press) listed in the previous blog, I had initially assumed that the “Politically Incorrect” series with their distinctive covers would exhibit a similar uniform quality. However the quality in fact is quite uneven. For example, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism” is mostly a religiously-based argument for Creationism and Intelligent Design. And “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science” appears to be written by someone who doesn’t quite understand the scientific method.

Of course any book dealing with “politically incorrect” subjects is going to be controversial – that after all is the point - but it is not unreasonable to expect accurate reporting supported by sound evidence. These books are still worth reading, just to get an alternative point of view, but don’t expect them all to be of the same quality of Martin Seiff’s excellent book.