A Field Guide to Lies

Posted on 17 May 2018 by Daniel J. Levitin

From The New York Times bestselling author of THE ORGANIZED MIND and THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC, a primer to the critical thinking that is necessary now than ever We are bombarded with information each day than our brains can process especially in election season It s raining bad data, half truths, and even outright lies New York Times bestselling author Daniel J Levitin shows how to recognize misleading announcements, statistics, graphs, and written reports revealing the ways lying weasels can use them It s becoming harder to separate the wheat from the digital chaff How do we distinguish misinformation, pseudo facts, distortions, and outright lies from reliable information Levitin groups his field guide into two categories statistical infomation and faulty arguments ultimately showing how science is the bedrock of critical thinking Infoliteracy means understanding that there are hierarchies of source quality and bias that variously distort our information feeds via every media channel, including social media We may expect newspapers, bloggers, the government, and Wikipedia to be factually and logically correct, but they so often aren t We need to think critically about the words and numbers we encounter if we want to be successful at work, at play, and in making the most of our lives This means checking the plausibility and reasoning not passively accepting information, repeating it, and making decisions based on it Readers learn to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection Levitin s charming, entertaining, accessible guide can help anyone wake up to a whole lot of things that aren t so And catch some lying weasels in their tracks Read A Field Guide to Lies – kino-fada.fr The most important component of the best critical thinking that is lacking in our society today is humility It is a simple yet profound notion If we realize we don t know everything, we can learn If we think we know everything, learning is impossible Who knew a book about numbers could be so entertaining Weaponized Lies is written for the average person, those of us who aren t statisticians or scien...Oh, boy, I wish every one of my fellow citizens had the information shared in this book as part of their reading regime On one hand, it would make it much harder to convince people with statistics On the other hand, it would be much harder to convince people with statistics Come to think of it, I think nowadays most people mistrust statistics, unless the statistics back up their own opinion How many times I received end of quarter reports from some mutual fund company showing showing growth Oh, boy, I wish every one of my fellow citizens had the information shared in this book as part of their reading regime On one hand, it would make it much harder to convince people with statistics On the other hand, it would be much harder to convince people with statistics Come to think of it, I think nowadays most people mistrust statistics, unless the statistics back up their own opinion How many times I received end of quarter reports from some mutual fund company showing showing growth and profits exceeding other companies but their graphs do not have the axes on their bar charts or line graphs labelled Even one so discrepant in the moneymaking arts as I know this for a sham repo...If someone told me I would read a book about numbers and enjoy it as much as a good novel, I suspect I would snort with laughter Not that I m number phobic or a math hater, but reading about numbers seems like an awfully dull way to spend precious reading time But Trish s review of A field Guide to Lies piqued my interest, so I decided to give it a try And, in fairness, the title doesn t suggest that this is mostly ... This is a book about how to spot problems with the facts you encounter, problems that may lead you to draw the wrong conclusions critical skills that we need today since we re blasted with information in a society based on conspicuous consumption Everyone wants our support or to sell us something many are skilled at leveraging our inherent flaws in reasoning to this end Reading this should be a prerequisite for posting on Facebook.The flaws inherent in our reasoning are manifold We re This is a book about ho...One of the most dangerous bits of confusion out there is the idea that we live longer I was very happy that Levitin addresses this early on p.20 , explaining that AVERAGE life expectancy is up a lot mainly because children don t die, not because there used to be no old people 4 at that point So why 1 for the book Because on p.175, he makes an argument based on the statement that people are living longer For crying out loud, did he not read his own % book There s a bigger One of the most dangerous bits of confusion out there is the idea that we live longer I was very happy that Levitin addresses this early on p.20 , explaining that AVERAGE life expectancy is up a lot mainly because children don t die, not because there used to be no old people 4 at that point So why 1 for the book Because on p.175, he makes an...A wonderfully well written book, on how to recognize fallacies and biased perspectives and to immune ourselves from being stuck with false beliefs.A good mix of Nate Silver s The Signal and the Noise Why So Many Predictions Fail But Some Don t and Edward Tufte s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, with original ideas thrown in as well.It makes me sad to think that people actually need to be told some of the information in this book, like Check the y axis on any chart presented by a politician , or that snopes.com and Consumer Reports are good places to check the veracity of claims However, it seems like people need to be t A good mix of Nate Silver s The Signal and the Noise Why So Many Predictions Fail But Some Don t and Edward Tufte s The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, with original ideas thrown in as well.It makes me sad to think that people actually need to be told some of the information in this book, like Check the y axis on any chart presented by a politician , or that snopes.com and Consumer Reports are good places to check the veracity of claims However, it seem...Finished this just in time to order it for fall I ll swap it for Asking the Right Questions A Guide to Critical Thinking, a remarkable book for its small size and clear, non jargon prose, but it s just not cutting it any in the Trump era I ll still use Huff s classic How to Lie with Statistics.Bom livro sobre leitura cr tica para tempos modernos que passa por um pouco de tudo Sei de bons exemplos mais a fundo de cada t pico, mas vale pela obra toda, especialmente porque economiza a leitura de v rios livros Boas descri es de como se mente como estat sticas com anedotas bem ilustrativas, algo que o The Improbability Principle Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day cobre mais profundamente Uma no o do que informa o cient fica, como ela coletada e como mud Bom livro sobre leitura cr tica para tempos modernos que passa por um pouco de tudo Sei de bons exemplos mais a fundo de cada t pico, mas vale pela obra toda, especialmente porque economiza a leitura de v rios livros Boas descri es de...You could argue reading this is timely in the lead up to the 2016 elections but it speaks to a nuance that is completely lacking in this particular campaign It sabout the skewing of stats, presenting information that favours your viewpoint, logical fallacies And it ties it into Fox News polls, autism claims, 9 11 truthers, unknown unknowns andAnd while the sly authorial voice does occasionally peek out it reads like a first year textbook There s the missed potential to haveYou could argue reading this is timely in the lead up to the 2016 elections but it speaks to a nuance that is completely lacking in this particular campaign It sabout the skewing of stats, presenting information that favours your viewpoint, logical fallacies And it ties it into Fox News polls, autism claims, 9 11 truthers, unknown unknowns andA...

English
17 May 2018

Daniel J. Levitin