Hoodwinking the nation
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Hoodwinking the nation
Transaction, c1999
- acid-free paper
- : pbk
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
"A Cato Institute book"--T.p. verso
Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-132) and index
Description and Table of Contents
- Volume
-
: pbk ISBN 9781412805933
Description
Most people in the United States believe that our envi- ronment is getting dirtier, we are running out of natural resources, and population growth in the world is a burden and a threat. These beliefs, according to Simon, are entirely wrong. Why do the media report so much false bad news about the environment, resources, and population? And why do we believe it? Those are the questions distinguished scholar Julian L. Simon set out to answer in his book, Hoodwinking the Nation.The opening chapter of this, the final book by Simon, discusses facts about population growth, natural resources, and the environment, and presents survey evidence of the public's view of these topics. The discrepancy between the facts and the public beliefs sets up the puzzle that the remaining chapters attempt to explain. Simon explores how and why false bad news is produced, citing government reports as often being the basis for environmental news scams and doomsday analyses. He examines the intellectual bases of concepts that lead to scares about resource depletion and population growth, and why biologists, in particular, tend to become overly alarmed about mythical environmental scares. Simon follows with an explanation of how the false bad news is disseminated. He notes that journalists know little about statistics and science and thus gather data in ways that lead to inaccurate conclusions, and politicians may misuse statistics in the service of their own policy and political goals. Simon contends that psychological and cultural mechanisms make people receptive to bad rather than good news and that most people have a too positive view of the past and a too negative view of the future.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1: What Do Americans Wrongly Believe about Environment, Resources, and Population?
- 2: The Vanishing Farmland Scam
- 3: The Concepts That Lead to Scares about Resources and Population Growth
- 4: Why Does the Public Not Hear Sound Environmental Thinkers?
- 5: Why Are So Many Biologists Alarmed?
- 6: The Old-Time Journalistic Methods Don't Work Here
- 7: Damn Lies, Statistics, and Doomsday
- 8: Personal Knowledge versus Media-Shaped Opinions
- 9: How Psychology Affects the Evaluation of Trends
- 10: Why Do We Hear Prophecies of Doom from Every Side?
- Conclusion
- Volume
-
acid-free paper ISBN 9781560004349
Description
Most people in the United States believe that our environment is getting dirtier, we are running out of natural resources, and population growth is a burden and a threat. These beliefs according to Simon, are entirely wrong. Why do the media report so much false bad news about these? And why do we believe it? Those are the questions distinguished scholar, Julian Simon set out to answer in this book.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1: What Do Americans Wrongly Believe about Environment, Resources, and Population?
- 2: The Vanishing Farmland Scam
- 3: The Concepts That Lead to Scares about Resources and Population Growth
- 4: Why Does the Public Not Hear Sound Environmental Thinkers?
- 5: Why Are So Many Biologists Alarmed?
- 6: The Old-Time Journalistic Methods Don't Work Here
- 7: Damn Lies, Statistics, and Doomsday
- 8: Personal Knowledge versus Media-Shaped Opinions
- 9: How Psychology Affects the Evaluation of Trends
- 10: Why Do We Hear Prophecies of Doom from Every Side?
- Conclusion
by "Nielsen BookData"