reluctantly discarded lines from an essay introduction, take 1

"this book is a lamentably clear and thorough example of the bad, bad things that happen to the scientific process, to logical thinking and writing, and even to grammatical clarity when attractive but fuzzy ideas from the realm of literary criticism--such as postmodernism--are allowed to be applied to the purportedly scientific investigation of an empirical question."

reason: essay is meant to be on the content¹ and not primarily the form of the book.

1. Q: what content?  A: find some.