Customer Reviews

The Fallacy Detective: Thirty-Eight Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Have you ever watched a political commercial or read a magazine ad and come away perplexed? You knew that you were being bamboozled, that the ads were somehow deceptive ... but you couln't quite put your finger on why?

The Fallacy Detective will help you get to the bottom of the many logical fallacies you encounter every day. Using Socratic teaching methods including lists of examples that are discussed and identified at the end of every chapter, you and your child will learn to easily recognize everything from Red Herrings and Straw Men to Ad Hominem attacks ... and many other attempts to lead you in the wrong direction logically. And a fallacy recognized, is a fallacy thwarted.

I've heard of The Fallacy Detective for years, and it has been on my wish list for awhile. When the opportunity to review it arose, I quickly volunteered. I haven't seen the earlier versions, so this review will not be a comparison of the 3rd edition with previous editions. It will focus solely on the recently released 3rd edition of the book. The cover does state that the new book contains more fallacies and more cartoons, though.

If you're wondering what a fallacy is, the very first sentence of the book defines it as "an error in logic -- a place where someone has made a mistake in his thinking." Sometimes we do this unintentionally, but sometimes these fallacies are used intentionally to mislead consumers and the general public. The ability to recognize fallacies is important.

My first reaction to the book when it arrived was that the cover design is very catchy and pleasing, and the softcover book was well-made. The 9" x 6.5" size is a nice one to hold, larger than a standard paperback, but not as bulky as a full-size text book. The book includes Peanuts, Dilbert, Calvin and Hobbes, and other cartoons. Its design, with the cartoons and short lessons, is appealing to myself and my students.

The book is divided into 38 logic lessons. It begins with an introduction that explains what a fallacy is, then moves into 3 lessons on thinking and listening skills. After that, the fallacy lessons begin: 9 lessons on methods used to "Avoid the Question", 9 lessons on "Making Assumptions", 7 lessons on "Statistical Fallacies", and 10 lessons on "Propaganda". The book concludes with "The Fallacy Detective Game" and the Answer Key to the lessons.

Each lesson begins with a concise and enjoyable description of that fallacy, complete with cartoons to help illustrate the point. Then there are a variety of exercises to help you understand the fallacy and identify it in the world around you. The lessons rely heavily on discussion to help students assimilate the information.

My plans were to use this book with my 12 and 14 year old daughters, doing one lesson together at a time. That backfired when my 14 year old (9th grader) ran off with the book and began to devour it. She was fascinated with learning to identify the fallacies, and quickly read through the book. She then started trying to trick us into using a fallacy in our discussions so she could pounce on it. It didn't work, but it was fun to see her looking for fallacies.

I still plan to continue to go through the book with the girls, one lesson at a time. Although my daughter has enjoyed reading it quickly, I am sure she'll get more out of it when we take it more slowly and discuss the exercises together. Once we've finished the book, we can enjoy "The Fallacy Detective Game" together ... sounds like a good car game for family trips.

It is well worth the $22.00 cost, is completely reusable and non-consumable. It can be used to provide a year long curriculum in logic, covering one fallacy a week and spreading the exercises out over the course of the week. My ideal method would be to read the fallacy lesson together on Monday, discuss a few exercises together, then assign additional exercises to be completed independently. This should also lead to great discussion as we spot fallacies in the world around us.

The Fallacy Detective is an excellent logic book for junior and senior high students. It will give students a foundation in logic that will help them think critically about the information surrounding them in life. It will also give them an advantage in school subjects like essay writing, speech, and debate. Its format is easy to use, enjoyable, and most importantly ... effective in teaching the fallacies.


** This item was provided free, in exchange for my honest review. **

What a great book for learning logic and critical thinking. While homeschooling, I taught a class at our co-op in "Worldview and Literature" where I (hopefully) led the students to realize all writing is done from a particular worldview and to realize how all our media influences our thinking.

That is one of the reasons this book would be well worth using in your homeschool, your co-op, or even with non-homeschooling families who enjoy discussing such subjects. I read a little of it here and there to Christopher, who said it reminded him of the important subjects he learned in debate at the co-op. This is the perfect book for use in co-op debate and/or critical thinking classes!

Having one child graduate from the University and another going through right now... I can't emphasize enough how important it is for young people to be able to stand firm in their beliefs in today's culture. Not only that, but to communicate their beliefs, challenging wrong teaching, and having the ability to reach the culture with good skills.

The Fallacy Detective is full of stories and cartoons to make (what could be) a challenging subject easy and fun to learn for younger students (age twelve and above) but it is "deep" enough to be used by high school and adult students. It is one of those books that you can use over and over again with multiple age students.

This is a fabulous resource for teaching logic in an informal and fun way. The book includes many exercises that review the fallacies as they are learned. This is fun for the student and reviews in a way that invites discussion between parent and child. I enjoyed the 2nd edition with my older son, and am beginning this, the 3rd edition, with my younger. Both children are debaters and find the study of logic to be invaluable as they critically think about assertions made by anyone else - be they a debate opponent, newscaster or a television advertiser.

What is a fallacy? And what does logic have to do with it? Maybe, like me, you have never studied logic before or had a good understanding of how to spot bad reasoning, a fallacy. In "The Fallacy Detective," Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn have tackled this subject of logic and its fallacies in a very engaging and amusing way.

Starting with the importance of developing an inquiring mind, the Bluedorns then tackle some of the most common logical errors by explaining them and giving exercises at the end of each chapter on how to spot these errors. "The Fallacy Detective" is laid out in an easily readable format and scattered with cartoons that help drive the lessons home.

Our family has been reading through this book together during our lunch break. Since my husband comes home for lunch everyday this has been an excellent way for whole family to learn this together. After we read a chapter, we then dive right into the exercises and see if we can spot the fallacies. This has been a fun and interesting subject for us to learn together as it has lead to many discussions about fallacies that we see all around us from advertising to political speeches.

I highly recommend reading "The Fallacy Detective." It is a great way to learn how to not only spot bad reasoning, but to learn how to avoid fallacies in your own reasoning. This book is a great tool in teaching and training our children and makes me think of the verse Matthew 10:16 "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves."

My 6-year old daughter LOVES reading Fallacy Detective with me every night, but even she recognizes serious flaws in some of the examples. I was especially put off by the section on Appeal to Authority, where the authors graded examples as fallacies or not based on the level of knowledge of the authority under appeal. Sorry, but from a logic perspective, an appeal to authority is ALWAYS fallacious. This is not the only example where the authors' logic was questionable.

Authors appear to seamlessly drift from strict logic constructs to their opinion of what makes "good advice". This soft demarcation blurs the concepts to the point that I feel one must take corrective action when using Fallacy Detective as an instructive tool.

Realizing that the book is suggested for ages 12 and up, I do feel that some of the examples and text complicated the lesson unnecessarily. Some of the learning value of Fallacy Detective comes from explaining to my daughter the elements of some examples (yes, including the bible.)

Make no mistake, Fallacy Detective is a good book and I do not regret buying it. The high-praise reviews I've seen on this site are, in my opinion, unwarranted. Even if Fallacy Detective corrected its many internal fallacies, it falls short as an instructive tool and would probably warrant four stars instead of three. Nevertheless, it does seek to fill a colossal void in the world of logic education for youngsters and that alone earns it some praise.

Finally, criticisms of the biblical content have some merit as bible quotes are used more often than instructive value alone would warrant. It is easy to see the bias in the authors and their product, but the claim that the biblical theme is unavoidable is absurd. We use Fallacy Detective in a completely secular sense and do not find this difficult.

If you need a tool to bridge the gap between the pablum taught in modern schools and useful logic training, Fallacy Detective is a moderately useful albeit overpriced tool. If you're looking for a rigorous education in logic, Fallacy Detective falls painfully short.

Amazing! I was using a different critical thinking curriculum and we were struggling with it being fun (which always promotes easier learning)We have just started the Fallacy Detective and my daughter and I LOVE it!! Such a fun way to promote "thinking outside of the normal box" We are trying to ensure she has a good grasp of critical and creative thinking and i am certain Fallacy Detective will be a fun filled way to achieve just that! Great book! Definately a worthy investment!!

"The Fallacy Detective" by Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn is a book that should be on every homeschooling family's book shelves (and even those who don't homeschool) especially if they enjoy Classical home educating. "The Fallacy Detective" is geared for ages 12 to adult but could easily be used for those under the age of twelve - in fact I plan on using it in our upcoming 2010-2011 school year for my will be 8 and 6 year olds.

The book covers thirty eight lessons on recognizing logic that is skewed. Each fallacy is full defined and explained and cartoons are through out the book from Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts and Dilbert which aid in understanding. The cartoons are child safe for the most part however I did see one with Calvin being punched and a lawyer holding a gun as evidence, these are use only as teaching tools and could allow a parent to expound why violence isn't needed by Christians. Each chapter is fairly short, I read each in 5 minutes or less with following exercises that the student or adult can do to train themselves to recognize bad reasoning.

Some of the fallacies that are discussed in "The Fallacy Detective" are: red herrings, ad hominem, circular reasoning, part-to-whole, post hoc ergo propter hoc, propaganda, transfer and many, many more. Again each fallacy has a set of exercises after the short reading assignment, and it is recommended that the exercises be done in a group of two or more so that they can be discussed and see other points of view. This works well in a homeschool family since moms and dads can each participate with the children. All answers for the exercises are given in the back of the book, also is the Fallacy Detective game with all rules, how to score, preparation given.

This book is a great resource for anyone wanting to uncover fallacies in all walks of life, from reading a book, to discussions and T.V. commericals. You can sign up for The Fallacy Detective News and get "The Fallacy Detective" test, both for free. The book sells for $22.00 and can be purchased at Amazon, Christianbook, Rainbow Resource and Trivium Pursuit. So as fellow homeschoolers look towards next year's curriculum I would recommend this book as a must-have.

**I received this book from Trivium Pursuit in exchange for my honest review.

I have enjoyed reading the book and I can't wait to take my kids through it.
It lays out the fallacies and logical errors in a way that makes it easy to
understand. I've always been a little hesitant to try to teach logic because
it can get so overwhelming. But the Fallacy Detective uses humor and common
sense to point out the underlying illogical issues. Great book!

Cindi Baumgardner
Speech and Debate Homeschooling Mom

We ordered this book for a class and my son and I have both enjoyed it very much! It is very interesting to see how people think!