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    A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age
    Unavailable
    A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age
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    A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age
    Audiobook7 hours

    A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age

    Written by Daniel J. Levitin

    Narrated by Dan Piraro

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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 more necessary now than ever.

    We are bombarded with more 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!

     *Includes a Bonus PDF with Supplemental Graphics
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Audiobooks
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781524702533
    Unavailable
    A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age

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    Reviews for A Field Guide to Lies

    3.5/5

    54 ratings7 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A good introduction to critical thinking that gives examples and methods to help people learn how to think critically about the things they read, hear, etc. It is not a book to debunk specific ideas, but it does use some of those ideas as examples of how to examine claims for the possibility of fraud, lies, or just plain mistakes. It is definitely one that I will include on the reading list for my students.
    • 3/5
      Underwhelming. Some good refreshers on fallacies, among other things, but I kept waiting for a chapter on climate science and denialism that never came. At times the author's writing style conveys a sort of flip arrogance I found off-putting rather than humorous, as I think was intended. The topic deserved a weightier, more ambitious effort.
    • 4/5
      This book may help you avoid giving your money or your vote to charlatans. It's a clear, concise presentation of logic, probability, and statistics and how to spot when they are being used improperly.
    • 2/5
      Very basic but useful.
    • 5/5
      As if I need any more book suggestions, I have a couple of feeds I've voluntarily signed up for and this popped up on one of them some time ago and I've just now gotten around to reading it. I eat up the good stuff on critical thinking and this just appealed. Sure, there were few revelations for me, but the composition was refreshing and even though Levitin seems to churn out variations on a theme, this is my first by him, so gets a good nod from me. It gets an extra star because I like his coverage.Levitin covers a lot. And he covers it well. His writing makes for easy reading and easier digesting if you've never read anything on the subject. for those who have, it's a nicely packaged compendium with quotable sound bites. He addresses the usual numbers game, ... and also words. Lies, damn lies and...Statistics are not facts. They are interpretations.All right. Important safety tip. (and spot on). And when he talks about infographics? ("...often used by lying weasels to shape public opinion" [my emphasis]) He's also spot on that "they [the weasels] rely on the fact that most people won't study what they've done too carefully." Rather disparaging to the much maligned weasels, similizing the ilk to them. Advising the reader, wisely, when encountering just about any claim: "...ask yourself: How could anyone know such a thing?" Intuitively obvious to the most casual observer? Well, of course, but equally obvious...advise so needed and ignored.On authority, he also advises (obviously) sagely:The first thing to do when evaluating a claim by some authority is to ask who or what established their authority. If the authority comes from having been a witness to some event, how credible a witness are they?And in a discussion later in the book he notes that "Experience is Typically Narrow" I recalled a discourse I had on The Petition Project...appeals to an "authority" beg the question as to the source of the authority; does the authprity have any pedigree at all on the subject in question? (Great pop culture reference in mind is the television show West Wing's character President Bartlet eviscerating a sham talk radio host for masquerading her PhD in English as some authority in divinity or psychology...) On things like Academy Awards - something I question when I actually take an interest - he makes a very good observation thatThe award system is generally biased toward ensuring that every winner is deserving, which is not the same as saying that every deserving person is a winner.Important distinction. There's a lot more here. I made a lot of electronic highlights and notes (that I should remember to save in event of another device glitch...) and though I like James Morrow's "Science has all the answers. We just don't have all the science", Levitin notes, "Science doesn’t present us with certainty, only probabilities." I might need to adjust my thinking. Highly recommended for the beginner and veteran.
    • 3/5
      Definitely learned stuff from this book but its not an entertaining tome and is drier than Levitin's other works.
    • 4/5
      ‘All I know is what’s on the Internet’ – Donald TrumpAnd there is A LOT on the Internet. How do you pick out the Truth from selective facts or outright lies? Award-winning neuroscientist Dr. Daniel Levithin offers strategies for unmasking deceptions and helping you navigate your way through all the (mis)information available today. Entertaining and informative.I received a free digital copy of this book from the publisher.