Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders by Jamie Whyte Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.67 You Save: $6.28 (48%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $6.49 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders
Book Review: Really Enjoyed Reading this
Summary: 5 Stars
Whyte has a wonderful writing style and does a great job of debunking most of the political rhetoric one hears today. I read it before the most recent political season got into full gear and it gave me a great vocabulary for slicing through the vacuous positions our candidates claimed to have taken. I've used this knowledge to have much better discussions with my friends as well, keeping the arguments in the substantive side instead of drifting to the absurd. Book Review: good but a little too pompous
Summary: 4 Stars
If you ever meet this author and get a chance to sit down for a conversation...turn and run in the other direction. He will take your every word and use it against you, making semantic arguments to make you look foolish. Or at least that's the impression I got from reading this book. I've used this as a supplementary text in argumentative writing courses I teach. It's nice to take a chapter at a time as a guide to avoiding logical fallacies, but it's maybe too much to just sit and read. Unless your a pompous jerk who enjoys feeling superior all the time. I only enjoy it sometimes.Book Review: Sophomoric
Summary: 2 Stars
I am only about halfway through the book but doubt I will go further.
He says that the motive behind a statement is irrelevant to the truth of the statement. The problem with his statement is that he assumes that truth is well defined.
In his discussion of The Unity of the Trinity he fails to define what he means by God. A person can be a pianist, a card sharp and an electrician, three independent aspects of the person. I don't see why Mr. Whyte assumes that being a father, a son and a Holy Ghost is illogical, particularly as he hasn't defined anything. Also, if one considers the integers modulo 2, 3 does equal 1.
A problem with a lot of the first half of the book is the lack of definitions.
His put down of the Declaration of Independence is sophomoric. He seems to miss the whole point of language. Jefferson wasn't trying to define equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, he was presenting an idea. I think that the Declaration is more like poetry, not a treatise on logic or the human condition.
It is a major flaw of the book that it doesn't take into account the purpose of language which is to communicate ideas. But language communicates ideas imperfectly and Mr. Whyte kvetching doesn't really help the situation.
I recall a "Riplely's Believe it or Not" where it said the Lincoln was wrong when he said that "few will remember" the Gettysburg Address. I can see Mr. Whyte making the same comment which a sophomoric comment.
He speaks against cultual relativism by saying that in 900 A.D. everybody thought that the sun revolved around the earth so a cultural relativist would say that was truth but everybody knows that, in truth, the earth revolves around the sun.
Well, this is a little deeper than that. I was sitting in a train in Grand Central and we seemed to be slowly pulling out of the station; or was the train next to us slowly pulling into the station. What is revolving around what depends on where you put the coordinate system. The earth revolves around the sun because some clever person decided to put the origin of the coordinate system at the center of the sun.
If I put the coordinate system on my train, the country side is moving by my stationary train. If I put the coordinate system at the train station, my train is moving by the stationary train station.
There are a few interesting ideas but I don't feel it worth my time to ferret them out.
Book Review: Of Logic and Crimes
Summary: 3 Stars
I was excited to read this book but found the writing choppy and not very engaging and the content little more than a few basic concepts rehashed and stretched out to fill a medium size book. The subtitle, "Exposing the Bogus Arguments", is a red herring. While some are provocative and a few even profound, most of the examples used by Jamie Whyte are pat not to say generic, and quite a bit patronizing at times given that the book's intended audience is surely above high school level.
Speaking of crimes against thinking, the way I see it, "FROM LOWBROW TO NOBROW" (2006) did a much better job of ripping to shreds crimes committed by sloppy thinkers and cultural conservatives--this time against popular culture. His book is entertaining, fast paced, and perhaps most important executed with impeccable logic! Highly recommended.
Book Review: An interesting angle on conversation
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed this logic (in everyday conversation and news reports) discussion. If you are interested in understanding the manner of how information and rhetoric is presented, and what tricks are used to confound you or persuade you, this is a good book. A bit cynical and harsh, for my taste, on everyday conversations between people, but insightful when dissecting arguments presented in the press or by politicians.