Skeptical/Critical Thinking Books You Love (or Hate!)

[Hunter Hawk]

And yet you continue to watch it. :dubious:
I also read Chick tracts and some of the works of David Icke. It can be illuminating to keep tabs on the crank community.

[Uthrecht]

I also read Chick tracts and some of the works of David Icke. It can be illuminating to keep tabs on the crank community.

So you're saying you engage in acts of self-abuse. You can go blind doing that, you know.

[Hunter Hawk]

You can go blind doing that, you know.
Hey, I'm fine with that. I'll just make up my own definition of what "blind" means and everything'll be groovy.

[Fenris]

I also read Chick tracts and some of the works of David Icke. It can be illuminating to keep tabs on the crank community.

Seconded. Have you read:

High Weirdness By Mail (which is now outdated 'cause of the internet, but still fascinating)
Kooks by Dianne Kossy(?)
Fads & Fallacies In The Name Of Science by Martin Gardner


If you haven't, these are essential kook reading and Fads & Fallacies is probably the best single skeptic/kook book I've ever read. Gardner does something that Randi and the others don't. He has fun.

[wring]

Not only did I read High weirdness, I made it a point to get snookie on as many of the mailing lists I could when it first came out. good times, good times.

[Mirhanda]

Seconded. Have you read:
Fads & Fallacies In The Name Of Science by Martin Gardner


If you haven't, these are essential kook reading and Fads & Fallacies is probably the best single skeptic/kook book I've ever read. Gardner does something that Randi and the others don't. He has fun.

Not only have I read it, it was a textbook in an interesting class I took in college. Highly recommend it.

[SmartAleq]

Not only have I read it, it was a textbook in an interesting class I took in college. Highly recommend it.

What a coincidence, I believe I taught that class--the text was chosen by somebody else, of course. :rolleyes:

[Hunter Hawk]

Seconded. Have you read:

High Weirdness By Mail (which is now outdated 'cause of the internet, but still fascinating)
Kooks by Dianne Kossy(?)
Fads & Fallacies In The Name Of Science by Martin Gardner


I've paged through the first and third, but haven't read them in detail. I'm not familiar with the second. OTOH, I've read the Fortean Times for years, and I've had my picture taken with Bob Gimlin. (He was a nice guy, BTW.)

[RedFury]

Seconded. Have you read:

High Weirdness By Mail (which is now outdated 'cause of the internet, but still fascinating)
Kooks by Dianne Kossy(?)
Fads & Fallacies In The Name Of Science by Martin Gardner


If you haven't, these are essential kook reading and Fads & Fallacies is probably the best single skeptic/kook book I've ever read. Gardner does something that Randi and the others don't. He has fun.

With all due, Fenris -- which is rather a lot in your case -- but I beg to differ on "the best book etc....." For some time now, I've been arguing IRL that The Demon-Haunted World (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Demon-Haunted-World/Carl-Sagan/e/9780345409461) should become part of the curriculum of any self-respecting academic institution. I can think of no better way to introduce youngsters to the scientific method while giving them the tools to think for themselves -- which I think is the biggest flaw in the educational system as is. Talking basics here, as at the HS level.

I remember my son asking me about God when he was about 10 or 11, and being more or less the lone-wolf atheist in the family at the time (that was close to a decade ago..my pack has since grown considerably :evil: ) I simply gave him Sagan's book to read by way of a response. Now, I am not suggesting that that is the 'right' age for kids to read and/or grasp what Sagan teaches -- in my judgment my son was definably ready; then again he started reading at age one -- but simply that at some point during their development, almost all of them would certainly benefit from it. Does not mean they'd become atheist ipso-facto but rather that even if they stayed within their faiths, they'd be at least able to defend the basis of same with at least a semblance of coherence. Further, and if taken to the next logical step, they might also accept (as some very smart religious folks I've encountered IRL) the fact that religious faith falls outside the scope of rigorous debate. It is simply a non-starter.

Which brings me back full circle to the OP. Perhaps someone here can put it on Lib's X-mas list? I'd be more than happy to purchase it for him myself. :D

[Fenris]

With all due, Fenris -- which is rather a lot in your case -- but I beg to differ on "the best book etc....." For some time now, I've been arguing IRL that The Demon-Haunted World (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Demon-Haunted-World/Carl-Sagan/e/9780345409461) should become part of the curriculum of any self-respecting academic institution. I can think of no better way to introduce youngsters to the scientific method while giving them the tools to think for themselves -- which I think is the biggest flaw in the educational system as is. Talking basics here, as at the HS level.
I like Demon Haunted World but (and don't press me for specifics, 'cause I can't remember them ;) ) there were a couple of points where Sagan's hobby-horse biases interrupted the flow of the book for me and there were points where he got shrill--the curse of almost every skeptic book out there.

I think Demon Haunted is wonderful, and you're right, it's a masterpiece for "How to think critically", but I respectfully disagree on the rank of "best". Gardner's good humor and patient explanation of why each crackpot theory is wrong pushes it over the top for me.

I love discussing skeptic books and it seems like a few other people do too, so I'm going to split this thread off so we don't keep hijacking the latest Lib-Crazy reports (which I also like!)

If I do this right, all the posts about skeptic books will remain here, but be copied into an new...oh, let's put it in PPR--skepticism is a philosophy...PPR thread and there should be a link here to there.

If I don't do it right, there might be a gawdawful mess for 7 to clean up. ;)

[Ratel]

Okaaaaaayyyyyy........am I the only one completely baffled by this thread?

[Moon Dog]

Okaaaaaayyyyyy........am I the only one completely baffled by this thread?

Yes :D

I think Fenris created this as a spin off to this thread. (http://www.giraffeboards.com/showthread.php?t=3298&page=4)

Didn't want to hijack peoples fun at poking a stick at the retard.

[WednesdayAddams]

It's a spin-off of this one, (http://giraffeboards.com/showthread.php?p=104562#post104562) so's not to derail it any more.

I'm a huge fan of Bertrand Russell and have read most of his work. I think his Sceptical Essays (http://www.amazon.com/Sceptical-Essays-Bertrand-Russell/dp/0415079195) are an excellent primer in logical thinking and provide a good basic framework for approaching 'magical thinking' and destroying it. I'd also recommend Hegel's Lectures on Logic.

[Ratel]

Yes :D

I think Fenris created this as a spin off to this thread. (http://www.giraffeboards.com/showthread.php?t=3298&page=4)

Didn't want to hijack peoples fun at poking a stick at the retard.

Who you calling a retard? :verymad:

I kid, I kid...

[Moon Dog]

Who you calling a retard? :verymad:

I kid, I kid...

No you are right. That was uncalled for. I hereby apologise to all retards. That was unfair to them.

[Ratel]

No you are right. That was uncalled for. I hereby apologise to all retards. That was unfair to them.

:p

[Khampelf]

No you are right. That was uncalled for. I hereby apologise to all retards. That was unfair to them.



Apology accepted.

[RedFury]

...I'm a huge fan of Bertrand Russell and have read most of his work. I think his Sceptical Essays (http://www.amazon.com/Sceptical-Essays-Bertrand-Russell/dp/0415079195) are an excellent primer in logical thinking and provide a good basic framework for approaching 'magical thinking' and destroying it...

:::: nods vigorously ::::

Huge Russell fan myself. Beyond his great body of work I also admired how he lived his life consistent with his ideals.

Perhaps a bit harsh for first-time Bertrand readers but I think his brilliance is summarily stated in his Why I Am Not A Christian (http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html) essay.

...You know, of course, that the Catholic Church has laid it down as a dogma that the existence of God can be proved by the unaided reason. That is a somewhat curious dogma, but it is one of their dogmas. They had to introduce it because at one time the freethinkers adopted the habit of saying that there were such and such arguments which mere reason might urge against the existence of God, but of course they knew as a matter of faith that God did exist. The arguments and the reasons were set out at great length, and the Catholic Church felt that they must stop it. Therefore they laid it down that the existence of God can be proved by the unaided reason and they had to set up what they considered were arguments to prove it... -- bolding mine.

Which fairly encapsulates the reason I mostly stay away from religious "debate" as I don't believe it is possible on rational grounds. Much less in the specious grounds that the Pitted poster who inspired this breakaway thread insists on conjuring.

As for the rest of the essay, it only gets better from there. Fairly unassailable methinks.

More controversial and worthy of debate, IMHO, is his work In Praise of Idleness (http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html) -- might be worth pointing out my own grandfather was was one of those landowners he speaks of and my own father a successful capitalist entrepreneur, and yet, on the whole, I largely agree with him.

However, and no doubt it is a mere opinion of mine and thus could be certainly wrong, I still think Sagan's Demon Haunted World is about the best primer around in terms of both ease of content and introduction to critical thought. Which is why, in my fantasies, it'd be a required read sometime in HS.

[Doyle]

Oh jeez, here we go again.

[Fenris]

Thanks for sharing. Sorry that the thread forced you to open it. :rolleyes:

[shamrock]

I just added Fads & Fallacies and Sceptical Essays to my Amazon order. You people better not be steering me wrong. ;)

I know this thread is specifically about books, but I listen to Brian Dunning's skeptoid (http://skeptoid.com/) podcast every week. I think he's very interesting and he covers a very broad spectrum of topics.

[Fenris]

I think you'll love it. Only thing to keep in mind is that Fads & Fallacies was written in the '50s, so when he's talking about Dianetics, it's before it became $cientology--he's not omitting stuff. There's a couple of other weird (if you don't know when it was written) moments): he spends WAAAY more time on Bridie Murphy than is necessary nowdays, but it was THE hot story at the time. Stuff like that.

It's no problem, it just took me a bit by surprise since I didn't catch when it was written at first.

My personal favorite crackpot theory in there is the guy who things sound is a material...like say, smells or light or fog. His argument is that it's impossible for say, a tiny cricket to move the billions of pounds of air that it moves when it's tiny little body chirps. Instead, it...exudes...a sound like I exude a fart after, say, too many onion rings.

Which is wacky.

But he wrote a couple of books about it.

In trochaic tetrameter.

You've heard it.

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

Imagine books about (poorly thought out) sound theory. Written like Hiawatha.

I assert without a question
That the chirping of a cricket
Or the twitter of a swallow
Scatters through the air around it
And through every object near it
Atoms real and substantial---
Matter as of true a nature
As the odoriferous granules
Issuing from the cryptic chambers
Of the rose or honeysuckles--
^actual quote from one of the guy's books.

If stuff like that amuses you, you'll love Fads

[rayh]

Irrationality (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irrationality-Stuart-Sutherland/dp/1905177070) - Stuart Sutherland.
Sutherland had a gift for succinctly and non-technically summarising psychology experiments. In this book he surveys more than one hundred and sixty different studies that expose failings of human reasoning and judgement. Overconfidence, conformity, biased assessment of evidence and inconsistency are among the follies given their own chapters. One chapter deals with organizational (bureaucratic) irrationality.

The point is not the banal one that there are stupid people about. It is that we all make systematic errors and biases that can lead to disaster in predictable ways. The example applications include reasoning about medical tests, military disasters, the paranormal, the Rorschach test, gambling and daft purchasing decisions.

How To Lie With Statistics (http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Lie-Statistics-Penguin-Business/dp/0140136290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245976483&sr=1-1) - Darrell Huff
It is not a long book, and some of the examples are dated (physicians recommending brands of tobacco, for instance), but the meat of the book is both accurate and extremely readable. It covers the ways that statistics can be made to show pretty much anything, both through deliberate manipulation and through simple sloppiness. The main chapters cover issues such as inadequate and biased samples, how to provide subtly and not-so-subtly misleading (though technically accurate) visual charts and representations, how to manipulate perception by eliminating inconvenient precision and adding spurious precision, how to manipulate perception by supplying numbers without context or by simply leaving inconvenient facts out, and how to confuse people thoroughly about correlation vs. cause-and-effect.

[Hunter Hawk]

And don't forget the books by good old Charles Fort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort) (as well as the aforementioned Fortean Times magazine). I think people who get all enthused about the notion of "paradigm shifts" when they're exposed to Kuhn would do well to take a look at Fort ;)

[Roo]

Wow, that was disconcerting to open a thread a see a quote by me in the first post. :p

If we're talking about Bertrand Russell books, my favorite is The Conquest of Happiness. But I like Why I Am Not a Christian also.

And if we're talking about skepticism books in regards to Christianity, the best books for me are Christian books themselves. If I'm not believing something, it's best to go to the source of what I'm not believing. So for that, C.S. Lewis books are good. Pretty logical and mostly well laid-out.

[Fenris]

I agree Roo-Lewis's A Grief Observed (or The Problem of Pain--both are good but one is fantastic--and I read 'em at the same time and can never remember which is which) is a masterpiece.

I think Lewis falters when he tries to "logically" prove his faith/God*, but when he's just discussing his beliefs and how they work, rather than trying to "prove" the unprovable, he's an incredibly powerful writer.

[WednesdayAddams]

If we're talking about Bertrand Russell books, my favorite is The Conquest of Happiness.

It sits on my night stand. For all that it is somewhat dated, the majority is still excellent advise. Not a primer in critical thinking so much as a blending of Eastern and Western Philosophies which translates to very good life advice.

[Icerigger]

BTW Martin Gardner is still living and writing even though he is in his 90s. Fenris, he once got in a pissing match with William F Buckley about something, but I don't remember what the dust up was about.

[Roo]

Not a primer in critical thinking so much as a blending of Eastern and Western Philosophies which translates to very good life advice.
In the same vein, Karen Armstrong and Joseph Campbell are both very interesting because they both studied the different religions and have combined each to suit their own personalities. Karen Armstrong chose Christianity while Joseph Campbell seemed to have picked more of an Eastern philosophy. But they are/were both quick to point out the flaws of their own worldviews as well as their strengths.

[OneCentStamp]

Denying History: Who Says The Holocaust Never Happened And Why Do They Say It? by Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman

It's a fact-based crushing of the Holocaust revisionist movement, and a lively look at some of the more infamous proponents of that movement. More than that, however, it's an examination of what history is, and whether objective truth is possible and why it's important. When I read it, it's like my brain lifting weights.

[Fenris]

I just added Fads & Fallacies and Sceptical Essays to my Amazon order. You people better not be steering me wrong. ;)

So did you get it? What do you think?

Enquiring minds want to know!

:D

[shamrock]

So did you get it? What do you think?

Enquiring minds want to know!

:D

Not yet. I'll be ordering this weekend. So I will report back sometime next week :)

[BJMoose]

How To Lie With Statistics (http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Lie-Statistics-Penguin-Business/dp/0140136290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245976483&sr=1-1) - Darrell Huff

I'll be durned. I was thinking of mentioning that even though I figured it would be too obscure for most folks (it was an "old classic" when I first encountered it thirty-two years ago).


I agree Roo-Lewis's A Grief Observed (or The Problem of Pain--both are good but one is fantastic--and I read 'em at the same time and can never remember which is which) is a masterpiece.

I think Lewis falters when he tries to "logically" prove his faith/God*, but when he's just discussing his beliefs and how they work, rather than trying to "prove" the unprovable, he's an incredibly powerful writer.

Grief was a little thing he did (basically self-therapy) after the death of his late-in-life wife. Pain was an apologetic on the old problem of the coexistence of a loving God and pain.

[The Logos]

Having read Van Der Steen's A Practical Philosophy for the Life Sciences, I can recommend this title as a text in applied logic and critical reasoning. Although geared towards biologists in training, an emphasis which is particularly noticable in the exercises, the book nevertheless introduces formal logic and its underpinnings, arguments and fallacies, and the structure and function of scientific concepts and theories.

I will also soon begin reading Quine's Methods of Logic, and so will be able to give an opinion there, too.