The Complete Idiot's guide

[TZ]

Has anybody seen any of these books? They seem to cover a whole bunch of topics from science, computing, religion to complete and utter woo..Including this gem that Lizerdbits and I encountered while wandering a bookstore yesterday (the New Age section was right next to the Science section..:crazy: ):
"The Complete Idiots Guide to Indigo Children"...
http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781592576371,00.html?breadcrumbList=%7BThe+complete+idiots+guide+to+Indigo+Children%7D&bcPath=c590611%2D00000000%23%23%2D1%23%23%2D1%7E%7Eq54686520636f6d706c657465206964696f74277320677569646520746f20496e6469676f204368696c6472656e&searchProfile=US-590611-global&strSrchSql=The+complete+idiot%27s+guide+to+Indigo+Children

Lizerdbits and I had some fun paging through it and trying so hard not to laugh aloud..I love this quote though
"Parenting these high-level children is a challenge, and their years in school may be challenging.."
I can just hear a parent now, trying to explain to a teacher that the reason why their child is failing is because as an indigo child they are much too smart for school....:silly:

[mr blur]

1. Well, we have three teenage boys,

none of whom is an Indigo Child (black seems to be the colour of choice)- all of whose years in school could be described as "challenging".

[semillama]

2. It's probably the most appropriately titled book of the series.

but seriously, the Complete Idiot's guides are pretty damn handy references for when you need to get a crash course in something like car maintenance, cooking, home repair, and so on.

I'd like to see a Complete Idiot's guide to DU.

[moggie]

3. That'd be easy

Complete Idiot's Guide to DU: stay in the health forum. You'll feel at home there.

[John Gauger]

4. I was in Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago and I found this:

http://www.amazon.com/Politically-Incorrect-Guide-Science-Guides/dp/089526031X

It's an unabashedly anti-science book, and it was in the science section. I would have complained, but I was with my mother and she doesn't like it when I "cause problems."

[TZ]

5. Yep. That should have been in the Religion section

Thats part of the nonsense school of thought that science is just a form of philosophy so there is nothing that really can be branded as anti-science. Part of the dumbing down of America, right there.

[John Gauger]

7. They are working under the theory that scientists are just like anybody else.

The implication is that the scientists just make stuff up for political reasons. If scientists are politically motivated, then their findings can be dismissed without having to go through the mess of actually disproving their theories.

They want us to be stupid. They don't want us to have critical thinking skills. It makes it easy for them to feed us their conservative schlock. That book is one of a series of conservative hack jobs. There are other books about the Middle East, Islam, American history, and capitalism. They makes claims such as early Americans treated the Indians well and that the Crusades were good because, among other reasons, it brought about mercantilism, which of course was the precursor of god's own ideology, capitalism. They say that Saudi Arabia is good and Iran is bad, because, well, Dubya says so. And they are extremely Christian-centric. The Middle East one says that Persia was good because Cyrus the Great returned the Jewish elders to Israel. An empire which existed in one form or another for hundreds of years, and it is automatically good because of one small favor that one man did to a small handful of minorities who had been dislocated thirty years earlier. But this action was praised in the bible so that makes the empire good. Never mind that it was done out of expedience: returning Persianized Jews, who were raised in Babylon and loyal to the emperor, to Israel and putting them charge made ruling the empire easier.

[realisticphish]

8. on another board

i saw a quote that sums up that series: "Since when did 'politically incorrect' mean 'batshit insane?'"

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. No need to 'cause problems' - just pick up all the copies, and put them in the politics section

assuming they don't have a dedicated 'political rant' section for Coulter etc. books.

[PVnRT]

10. Any time I see that on a book store shelf

I hide it or quietly move it to the fiction section.

[WoodrowFan]

6. evolution

Someone gave the Politically-Incorrect Guide to Evolution to our church library (my wife and I are the librarians). it immediately went into the trash. One of the cover blurbs was by Ann Coulter, who I am sure has advanced degrees in biology qualifying her to review the book! :eyes: