I ask because it's not unheard of for a mass-market work to include lots of citations allegedly in support of points made in the text, but when tracked down, ac

I ask because it's not unheard of for a mass-market work to include lots of citations allegedly in support of points made in the text, but when tracked down, actually contradict the author's points. eg: Ann Coulter, http://mediamatters.org/research/200608070002 http://mediamatters.org/research/200608070002 Most of the time nobody bothers to check. Reviews will mention "19 pages of footnotes" or similar to suggest the author's arguments are well-founded. But sometimes the footnotes are just a smokescreen. If Ferris cites scientific papers, are they in credible journals? Have they held up? Do his sources actually support the claims? I dunno. I was wondering if anyone had checked.