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Dick Taverne is perhaps best remembered as the maverick ‘Democratic Labour’ MP for Lincoln in the mid 1970s, and later as one of the founder members of the SDP. Here he resurfaces as a spokesperson for science.
The ‘unreason’ referred to in the title, relates less to the kinds of subject covered by Magonia, though Taverne is not impressed by ‘alternative medicine’, than to the environmental lobby and opposition to GM crops. I am afraid that your poor old reviewer is not equipped to evaluate the rival arguments here, but does have the feeling that while there may well be merits in Taverne's attacks on environmental fundamentalism, he himself trips at times into a kind of scientific fundamentalism which does not really take into account the complexities of the issues involved. I noted that he referred to Anna Bramwell’s history of ecology, which notes its historical connections to the far right, without noting that her own husband was a member of a far right group. His account of the views of the Edinburgh historian of science David Bloor is pretty much a travesty.
It is interesting to note than when Taverne backs the dissident Bjorn Lomborg, who opposes the thesis of global warming, the lines between scepticism and Forteanism become peculiarly blurred. Is the difference solely on what you are sceptical about? -- Peter Rogerson, from Magonia Supplement 59, November 2005.
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