Not a Scientist

How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent and Utterly Mangle Science

By: Dave Levitan

Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau

An eye-opening tour of the political tricks that subvert scientific progress.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan created one of the dumbest talking points of all time: "I'm not a scientist, but..." Since then, politicians have repeatedly committed egregious transgressions against scientific knowledge prefaced by this seemingly innocuous phrase. Yet, as science journalist Dave Levitan reveals, that line is just the tip of the melting iceberg when it comes to rhetorical tools wielded to attack scientific findings that don't cooperate with political agendas. Just listen to Mike Huckabee dismiss climate change as "a sunburn", Donald Trump suggest that vaccines cause autism, or Todd Akin's infamous invention of "legitimate rape".

With a taxonomer's eye, Levitan captures and categorizes these deceptions by chapter, assigning delightful names like "The Butter-Up and Undercut", "The Literal Nitpick", "The Straight-Up Fabrication", and many more. His sharp-elbowed humor dismantles our leaders' deceptive arguments while illuminating the real science behind the worst soundbites from our elected non-scientists.

©2017 Dave Levitan (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

We've never needed a book like this more

This book is an excellent way to begin thinking critically over how politicians present science. As science policy becomes increasingly important in our daily lives it behoves us all to have the skills to recognize when or politicians are misrepresenting the science we use to guide us.

Interesting and Timely Book

The author did a good job of standing up for science without being partisan as well as equipping the reader with useful tools to analyze political rhetoric against scientific true. I enjoyed the book and thought the voice performance was great.

Wholly inadequate

This book is certainly of its time, but fundamentally it falls into the same trap that most “moderate democrats” have fallen into in recent years. It (rightly) points out that the vast majority of scientific disinformation is coming from the right and from Republicans. It then chides Obama for saying something that needed more context to be understood at a rigorously technically accurate level (Obama said “hottest year on record” and it essentially boils down to “high certainty of the hottest year on record”) and essentially places the blame at his feet for the right pouncing on it.

I don’t expect this book to be totally flattering to the left side of the aisle, but it must understand that there’s no level of rigorousness at which people will not attempt to deliberately mislead others with gotchas. It doesn’t really address any of the structural problems with our society which effectively makes the book useless.

I’m sure this is more obvious in 2026 than it was in 2016.

Clearly has something against conservatives.

I would have preferred an unbiased perspective against politicians, instead, the author is clearly biased and this demeans the message he is trying to make.