Let Brian J. Ford introduce your listeners to the crazy world of Nonscience, the dodgy descendant of science. Brian’s new book, entitled Nonscience Returns, will make their toes curl as it shows how the Experts are taking over every aspect of our lives. Nobody understands the rules for COVID-19 because Experts have confused everyone. And there is false news everywhere. No, the Amazon is not the lungs of the world, it doesn’t produce our oxygen. Paper bags in supermarkets are worse than plastic; producing paper causes far more pollution. Are you giving up your fried breakfast for a healthy quiche? Don’t—the quiche is more likely to harm you. Japan is introducing clean cars, powered by hydrogen, but this remarkable book reveals that the powerplant producing the fuel is the filthiest in the world. Why is every major TV station promoting a bake-off show? Those recipes—with sugar, cream, fat, and carbohydrate—cause more disease than anything else we eat.
Your listeners no doubt send their kids to university to train their brains, but they go because it’s the easiest way to leave home. They like it because they can get high, drunk, and laid, any time they want. A degree will always be their reward, even if they stay in bed all day, because universities must keep their place in the league tables. Students end up more in debt than their parents, after handing over borrowed money to fund the college’s dubious ambitions. Many institutes prosper by misappropriating other people’s research and claiming it as their own. Most of the best careers—from being an inventor or a computer consultant to a life coach or a web designer—don’t need a degree. The great names of our digital age (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Clive Sinclair, Mark Zuckerberg) didn’t graduate, while Pasteur, Crick, Watson, Dunlop, and hundreds of other great names made discoveries in very different areas than those for which they were qualified. Much of the technology you see around you was invented by an amateur.
Brian would be very happy to come on your show to divulge the secrets of becoming an Expert and expand on everyday Nonscience.
Brian J. Ford has frittered away his life creating a new multidisciplinary approach to science. He is the person who first introduced laws governing the safe handling of viruses and bacteria, and went on to demonstrate intelligence in microbes. He has answered puzzles like the evolution of giant dinosaurs, spontaneous human combustion, coagulation of the blood, the development of the microscope, and scores of other topics. He edits encyclopaedias, was science editor for Guinness World Records (and wrote their New Quiz Book); presented his own BBC shows Science Now and Where Are You Taking Us?, hosted Food for Thought on Channel Four, and even had his own television game-show; he has visited most countries in the world and has lectured internationally for decades—the leading cruise lines have him as their celebrity speaker. Professor Ford has appeared on Today and Any Questions? while writing reports on the EU’s nuclear research, bed-bugs, conservation, algae, locust breeding, and Lithuanian politics. He appeared on the satirical programme Week In, Week Out, has done stand-up comedy, written for New Scientist and Scientific American, and writes a controversial column in The Microscope journal (search for ford CF01.htm). Brian J. Ford has connections with many universities and the popular An Evening With Brian at the Inter/Micro conference in Chicago has run for over 30 years. His books (approaching 40 of them) have been published in about 150 editions around the world. Curtis Press approached him about a new book, but all he’d agree to was a reprint of one he’d written earlier. Typical.
