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.
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.
Has anyone ever bothered to verify those facts and citations? I mean, do his sources actually support his claims?