Sorry But You’re Wrong About It

This is the title page of a book I found at a local library sale. It’s written by one Albert Edward Wiggam, D. Sc., in the first person, addressed to the Man on the Street (personified throughout as “my dear Mr. Manstreet”). In it he explains why we’re all wrong about everything since we don’t have the science to back it up. He concedes that scientists “are almost always wrong,” but “the scientist can tell just about how nearly right he is and can calculate his own probable error.” The conclusions he attacks are astonishing, as is his hit rate for presenting a convincing argument. Conversely, there are some that would be charming if they weren’t so appalling. For example, he asserts that “you are wrong if you believe…. the Women Can Drive Automobiles As Well As Men,” a notion he claims is “surely dripping with blood.” He defends the notion by attacking accident statistics showing favorably toward women drivers, then goes on to insist that female applicants should be screened more carefully and trained more intensively. He goes as far as to say that six months of training should be given only after an applicant has demonstrated the “inborn aptitudes” (italics his) to make them safe drivers.
And it wouldn’t be a misogynist screed without a pseudo-scientific implication:

It may be that women have inborn physical, mental and emotional characteristics as unexplored and unmeasured, such as lack of “nerve” (or even too much “nerve”!), or a feeling of physical inferiority, or a recklessness of life, or a super-regard for life, which make it necessary for them to take longer training to become safe drivers. These are, however, mere guesses and I have no evidence for or against them.

Like Stephen Colbert trying to start a rumor that Obama is a secret Muslim by claiming that he had no evidence for or against the notion…It’s arich book and will be fun to pick apart literarily and literally. Check my Flickrto see the Table of Contents.