Review of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel

This is a review of a book published and Copyrighted in 2006 by JFS Productions, Inc. and American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. entitled Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel.

The subtitle of this book is Get Out the Shovel-Why Everything You Know is Wrong . The cover shows Stossel in clean pants, a clean shirt wearing a tie, and holding a clean shovel. It reminds me of those comments we make about actresses who run through the woods, the forest, swim through shark infested waters of the jungle and come out wearing clean, dry clothes and have dry hair in perfect style.

My comments about this book are pretty much my own opinion. Overall, this is a fairly decent book and Stossel points out some very interesting things, like on pp. 42-43 he shows a chart (p.42) that indicating that women are indeed better drivers than men, even taking into account the fact that men put on more miles that women

As an organic gardener some of the radio personalities talk about gardening by the moon. I was glad to see that the moon has no effect on people (p.24), was also glad to see that there is evidence that we have no need of population control (pp. 26-27).

In the chapter Experts for Everything which begins on p. 185 he debunks a lot of myths the experts have led us to believe. But his apparent (but not conclusive) conclusion is wrong. On p. 282 Stossel says "On the campaign trail, President Bush repeatedly said, 'Prosperity must have a purpose,' suggesting that it was government's job to figure out that purpose and fund it."

I think Stossel has a misunderstanding of what "prosperity must have a purpose" means. For me that statement means prosperity can not be just about getting money for the sake of money. It has to have a purpose. To pay the bills, to help those in need or to fund the children's education. It can not be a love of money issue.

Some issues that I wish Stossel had of dealt with are sleep, do we really need a full 8 hours like the experts say? Abortion, is it really an unborn child (it is, but it was not an issue in the book), are Homemade remedies better or do they even work (he does talk about Homepathy but that is different).

Overall, it's a good book, but like most humans, Stossel has some issues and some with the book. If you want to read a copy, try to pick it up at your local library, as I did.