World Famous Comics: Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders
Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders
By: Jamie Whyte Publisher: McGraw-Hill Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: McGraw-Hill Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 176 Publication Date: September 12, 2004
Product Description: A witty assault on lame rhetoric, specious logic, and official BS
Here's a fast-paced, ruthlessly funny romp through the mulligan stew of illogic, unreason, and just plain drivel served up daily in the media by pundits, psychics, ad agencies, New Age gurus, statisticians, free trade ideologues, business "thinkers," and, of course, politicians. Award-winning young philosopher Jamie Whyte applies his laser-like wit to dozens of timely examples in order to deconstruct the rhetoric and cut through the haze of shibboleth and doubletalk to get at the real issues.
A troubleshooting guide to both public and private discourse, Crimes Against Logic:
Analyzes the 12 major logical fallacies, with examples from the media and everyday life
Takes no prisoners as it goes up against the scientific, religious, academic, and political establishments
Helps you fine-tune your critical faculties and learn to skewer debaters on their own phony logic
Excellent Book After reading this book and then noticing some of the negative reviews, I was perplexed as to why. So I clicked on the lower reviews and noticed a common theme; they're all upset about Whyte's attempt to diminish Christianity and religion as a whole. So for readers who are very sensitive about religion, I would not recommend this book. But if you can see past the religious aspect and into some of the more meaningful arguments Whyte presents, this book is superb. And as to whether or not Whyte succeeds in discrediting religion, I'll let you be the one to determine that. I just hope you aren't convinced by some of these hocus-pocus reviews because most of the information in this book is critical to the average person.
Good Concise Expose of Invalid Reasoning Jamie Whyte has given us a very good review of the commonest forms of invalid arguments, well worth reading, despite some flaws:
On page 4, he writes: "It [entitlement] has a political or legal interpretation, by which we are all entitled to any opinion we might have, however groundless. But it also has an epistemic interpretation, that is, one related to, or concerned with, truth or knowledge."
(1) On page 5, he writes "So, the two senses of entitlement could not be further from each other."
The first of three meanings of entitlement given in The American Heritage Dictionary is: "The act or process of entitling." For example, Mr. White entitled his book "Crimes Against Logic." I submit that this sense of 'entitlement' is further from either ot the two senses mentioned by Mr. Whyte than those two are from each other. Mr. Whyte grossly overstated his case; he need only have pointed out that the two senses he mentioned are not the same, from which his conclusion quite correctly follows, that equivocating between those two senses constitutes muddled (and often deceptive) logic.
Of all the many times I have read "nothing could be further from the truth." I don' recall any time I couldn't think of something further from the truth. For an enlightening discussion, see Isaac Asimov's The Relativity Of Wrong.
At the bottom of page 5, (NOT A FLAW) he mentions that "When confronted with counterarguments, [many of us] do not pause and wonder if they might be wrong after all. They take offense." For more background on this unfortunate fact, see Farhad Manjoo's excellent True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, and see my review thereof.
(2) On page 104, after discussing the faulty reasoning behind Karl Marx's claim that capitalism exploits the workers, Whyte writes: "But I deny it is exploitation." Because Marx grossly overstates his case it does not follow that Whyte may legitimately overstate his. Not all capitalist enterprises exploit their workers; I think (and hope) that most don't, BUT SOME DO! For egregious examples thereof, see Professor Kevin Bales' Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy and Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves.
Another non-flaw: On page 112, Whyte writes: " The main benefit of snorting cocaine, perhaps the only benefit, is the pleasure it gives the snorter. Prohibitionists never consider this benefit." I would add, of course not; they probably don't consider it a benefit. Puritanism has been defined as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time."
(3) And finally, on pp. 115-6, is the worst flaw in the book: Whyte is himself guilty of equivocation. He writes: "For example, describing an income-tax cut as a 'giveaway' assumes that a citizen's gross income is not her own but is, rather, the property of the government. Describing the grvernment's spending plans as generous embodies the same assumption. The virtue of generosity does not consist in giving away others' money: it requires you to give away your own." He is equivocating between 'generous' in the sense of a generous (ample, bigger than average) portion (e.g. of food) and 'generous' in the sense of a generous (unselfish, sharing) person. Also, it is not true that describing an unwarranted tax rebate to the wealthy as a 'giveaway' or a transfer payment to a poor family as 'generous' assumes what he claims it does. It actually assumes that the PORTION of a person's gross income that is paid in taxes thereby BECOMES government property, which it does; NOT that her entire gross income IS government property, which it isn't.
People unfortunately tend to take government services for granted, and resent having to pay for them, but they would be very upset if the government stopped providing schools, police protection, national defense, roads, bridges, tunnels, garbage collection, and all the many other services they get for their tax money.
Despite two minor flaws (1 & 2) and one rather major one (3), this book has much to recommend it. It is well worth the price.
watziznaym@gmail.com
great for examples and references This book provides great examples of how information is constantly misconstrued in daily life. If you are religious, as I am, you will have to fight through the continuous references back to the authors arguements against religion and how illogical religion and believers are. The book is a great reference for media and politics (especially with the it being election season in the USA).
Logic as a way of life In a world saturated in lies, half-truths, and propaganda, a primer on logic is essential reading. This book cuts through the nonsense we are exposed to on a daily basis and gives the reader tools for seeing the world more clearly and thoughtfully.
Not as interesting as I'd hoped Admittedly, I was hoping for something along the lines of "Freakonomics" or "Blink," and this just didn't quite do it for me. Honestly, I just couldn't get into it.
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