Weaponized Lies: How to Think Critically in the Post-Truth Era

Amazon.com Price: $15.39 (as of 11/10/2019 10:09 PST- Details)

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Description

Previously Published as A Field Guide to Lies

We’re surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling writer Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on the right track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we want to know and share now.

Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments alternatively can easily be persuasive as they waft away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we will take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. In the long run, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to resolve if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we will and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to somewhat varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories.

This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing the entire great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like “fringe theories,” “extreme views,” “alt truth,” and even “fake news” can literally be dangerous. Let’s call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.

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