Preface -- Introduction. -- 1. We the people: What we know, and what we don't know -- The belief engine -- Thinking about risk. -- 2. The research enterprise: What is science? -- How science knows what it knows -- Models -- A jury of peers. -- 3. Things go wrong: Misconduct -- Science in court -- Researchers and journalists. -- 4. The universal solvent: A matter of money -- Selling health -- What's for supper? -- 5. Political science: Constituency of ignorance -- The political environment -- Taking things on faith. -- Conclusion. -- Appendix: Trustworthy, untrustworthy, or irrelevant? -- Notes -- Furhter reading -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

Cornelia Dean draws on her 30 years as a science journalist with the New York Times to expose the flawed reasoning and knowledge gaps that handicap readers when they try to make sense of science. She calls attention to conflicts of interest in research and the price society pays when science journalism declines and funding dries up.-