How do you show a current reality?

I am always interested in what other people think of books, movies, TV shows, politics, religion, and more. I often look at the one-star book reviews on Amazon of books I've thoroughly enjoyed to see if a negative opinion should change or modify my positive one.

As I said in my last blog post I was fascinated by Gaia Vince's Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time. I found it a rich, and thought-provoking summary of much recent research into human evolution. And I do agree with the reader who wrote that "Gaia’s wordy prose was frustrating at times. I consistently had to reread sentences. Made the 280ish actual pages a bit of a slow read. But there was a lot of good information to be had."

That's why I was interested in the reader who gave the book one star, writing, "The book is infused with the authors opinion in almost every paragraph occasionally interspaced with scientific data (studies) to 'prove' the author correct. Absolutely no problem with using this approach until.... The author inserts their political viewpoint. The viewpoint is presented in a declarative sentence, "of course I'm right" the author makes you feel. At this point you begin to view the book as not a rigorous scientific work but an op-ed piece. You might as well read the editorial pages of the WSJ or the NYT. It's like Ann Coulter wrote a science textbook. This is the only book in a long time I just stopped reading. Wish I could get my money back."

I'm not sure I understand the criticism. I had no sense that Vince has a political viewpoint that she inserts at all, let alone into multiple paragraphs. Given the river of studies that pour out of worldwide research labs and the number of journals that publish them, it would be humanly impossible to synthesize and incorporate them all in a single book (although that may be what AI will do in the future). Meanwhile, Vince—like any author—has to select and organize her material, and I believe there's a difference between selecting and organizing to convey a current reality—Vince's agenda—and selecting and organizing to promote a point of view.

I'm also not sure how a responsible science writer inserts a political viewpoint. There's bad science and good science, but is there conservative science or liberal science? And if you read a book like Transcendence through a lens of conservative or liberal politics aren't you missing the point? I believe you are. And I feel for readers who are so blinded by political bias, whatever it is, that they cannot see the value, whatever it is, in front their noses.