“A flawless
compendium of flaws.” —Alice Roberts, PhD, anatomist, writer, and
presenter of The Incredible Human Journey
The antidote to
fuzzy thinking, with furry animals!
Have you read (or
stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi
certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments!
This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much-needed dose
of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle).
Here are cogent
explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument,
the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that
actually fall short—plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals
who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange
light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise
(the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn’t believe that gas
emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn’t
like the result (the argument from consequences).
Once you learn to
recognize these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere
from congressional debate to YouTube comments—which makes this
geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions.