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An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments: Learn the Lost Art of Making Sense
Contributor(s): Almossawi, Ali (Author), Giraldo, Alejandro (Illustrator)
ISBN: 1615192255     ISBN-13: 9781615192250
Publisher: Experiment
OUR PRICE:   $14.36  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: September 2014
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Logic
- Language Arts & Disciplines | Rhetoric
- Mathematics | Logic
Dewey: 168
LCCN: 2014016343
Physical Information: 0.4" H x 8.2" W x 7.2" (0.75 lbs) 64 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

"A flawless compendium of flaws." --Alice Roberts, PhD, anatomist, writer, and presenter of The Incredible Human Journey

From the author of the forthcoming An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language, here's 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.


Contributor Bio(s): Almossawi, Ali: - Ali Almossawi holds a Masters in Engineering Systems from MIT and a Masters in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in San Francisco, where he works as a data visualization designer for Mozilla, while continuing to collaborate with his colleagues at the MIT Media Lab. Ali's work has appeared in publications such as Wired.