A good article from the Daily Telegraph (UK)
Lies, damn lies and 'counterknowledge' By Damian Thompson
George Bush planned the September 11 attacks. The MMR injection triggers autism in children. The ancient Greeks stole their ideas from Africa. "Creation science" disproves evolution. Homeopathy can defeat the Aids virus.
Do any of these theories sound familiar? Has someone bored you rigid at a dinner party by unveiling one of these "secrets"? If so, it is hardly surprising. In recent years, thousands of bizarre conjectures have been endorsed by leading publishers, taught in universities, plugged in newspapers, quoted by politicians and circulated in cyberspace.
This is counterknowledge: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking. Ideas that once flourished only on the fringes are now taken seriously by educated people in the West, and are wreaking havoc in the developing world. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/12/nrfact112.xml(I didn't remember if the Telegraph was RW or LW or neither, but I liked this column...)