Creationists saturation-bombing Amazon?
A pen-pal of mine sent me the following message regarding Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell:
The Dishonesty Institute is mounting a campaign in support of Meyer’s book over at Amazon.com. In the past day there have literally been scores of new positive 5 star reviews posted by those who have seen the Dishonesty Institute’s e-mail appeal. Please vote Nay on each of these reviews and Yea on the negative ones, especially mine and Donald Prothero’s, since ours are the most comprehensive negative one star reviews posted at Amazon.com.
My informant had previously received the following letter:
Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell is gaining momentum, and now the Darwinists [sic] are fighting back. After Dr. Meyer and Dr. Sternberg trounced Darwinists [sic] Michael Shermer and Donald Prothero in last week’s debate, desperate Darwinists [sic] are lashing out at Dr. Meyer, trashing his book at Amazon.com. They can’t afford for more people to be exposed to the arguments that Meyer is making, so they have resorted to trying to ruin the book’s reputation. If you have read Signature in the Cell, we need your help! Please write a review at Amazon.com (they need not be long, just honest). This is a book that has earned its place in the top 10 list of bestselling science books at Amazon, the book that made the Times Literary Supplement’s Top Books of 2009, and an author who was named “Daniel of the Year” for his work. Please take a moment and defend Dr. Meyer and his groundbreaking book.
so it is not an unreasonable inference that the reviews are part of a campaign. In the days before December 8, most if not many of the reviews of the book were negative. In the last few days, however, scores of presumed readers have submitted dozens of reviews, the vast majority of them 5-star.
I do not want to get into a spitting match with a bunch of creationists, and it is probably obvious that the current reviews are part of a campaign. Nevertheless, if you have read the book and want to write a (presumably negative) review or comment on the existing reviews, I would not try to stop you.