Whether we want to improve education or cut crime, to enhance public health or to generate clean energy, we need the experimental methods of science - the best tool humanity has yet developed for working out what works. Yet from the way we're governed to the news we're fed by the media we're let down by a lack of understanding and respect for its insights and evidence. In The Geek Manifesto Mark Henderson explains why and how we need to entrench scientific thinking more deeply into every aspect of our society. A new movement is gathering. Let's turn it into a force our leaders cannot ignore.This edition includes an appendix: 'A Geek Manifesto for America' by David Dobbs.

There has never been a better time to be a geek (or a nerd, or a dork). What was once an insult used to marginalize those curious people (in either sense of the word) and their obsessive interest in science has increasingly become a badge of honour. And we should be crying out for them...

We live in a country where:

·Only one of our 650 MPs has worked as a research scientist.

·The Government's drugs adviser was sacked for making a decision based on scientific fact rather than public opinion

·A writer can be forced into court for telling the scientific truth

·The media would rather sell papers by scaremongering over MMR vaccines and GM crops than report the less sensational facts.

Whether we want to improve education or cut crime, to enhance public health or to generate clean energy, science and its experimental method is critical.

It's time to stop the nonsense!

The Geek Manifesto shows us what needs to happen to entrench scientific thinking more deeply into politics and society. And how to turn our frustrated outrage into positive action that our country's leaders cannot ignore.