Previously Published as A Field Guide to Lies

We’re encircled by fringe theories, fake information, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin displays how to disarm these socially damaging inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the essential lessons in essential thinking that we have to know and share now.

Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can provide a about Weaponized Is situated: How exactly to Believe Critically in the Post-Truth Era grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy quarrels alternatively can easily be persuasive as they drift from the facts within an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we are able to try better evaluate information, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns from what underlies our ability to see whether something holds true or false: the technological technique. He grapples using the limitations of what we can and cannot understand. Case studies are offered to show the applications of logical thinking to quite assorted settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision producing, 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 period is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all of the great developments humankind has made. Euphemisms like “fringe theories,” “extreme sights,” “alt truth,” as well as “fake information” can actually be dangerous. Let’s call lies what they are and catch those making them in the action.

*Contains a PDF of supplemental images on visualizing conditional probabilities