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A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age
Contributor(s): Levitin, Daniel J. (Author)

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ISBN: 0525955224     ISBN-13: 9780525955221
Publisher: Dutton Books
OUR PRICE: $23.80  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: September 2016
* Out of Print *
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Education | Statistics
- Mathematics | Logic
- Psychology | Applied Psychology
Dewey: 153.42
LCCN: 2016007356
Physical Information: 1.2" H x 5.9" W x 9.1" L (1.05 lbs) 304 pages
Features: Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Maps, Price on Product
Review Citations: Library Journal Prepub Alert 04/15/2016 pg. 64
Kirkus Reviews 06/15/2016
Publishers Weekly 06/27/2016
Shelf Awareness 09/23/2016
Library Journal 11/01/2016 pg. 90
Library Journal 04/15/2016
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Winner of the National Business Book Award

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, and distortions from reliable information? Levitin groups his field guide into two categories--statistical information 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 weasels in their tracks


 
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