Open Letter to Hawaii State Librarian
December 10, 2018 To Stacey Aldrich, Office of State Librarian: It seems almost daily, though it’s probably closer to weekly, that another book promoting pseudoscience, superstition or nutrition/medical fraud appears on the new-books rack in the Makawao library. No doubt it’s the same in other branches. The latest is Handbook of Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda by Bridgette Shea. But I have yet to see a new book on that rack that questions, critiques or debunks the pre-science, anti-science nonsense. Looking through the system’s catalog I count roughly twice as many astrology titles as astronomy titles; at least ten times as many titles about or promoting religions as those about or promoting atheism; ten times as many titles promoting the delusion/fraud of alien abduction as those debunking the madness; about 60 titles promoting acupuncture and none debunking it; 80 titles by con-artist Sylvia Browne and dozens more by other “psychics” and only a handful casting doubt on