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The Critical Thinker's Dictionary: Biases, Fallacies, and Illusions and What You Can Do About Them
'Know Thyself' advised the ancient Greek sages at a time when philosophers defined us as rational animals. Rationality was thought of as an ideal largely achievable by controlling the emotions and avoiding logical fallacies. Today, we know better. Biology and neuroscience have exposed the brain as a great deceiver. Unconscious biases drive us to believe and do things that the conscious mind explains in self-serving stories, making us appear more rational to ourselves than we really are. Modern science has taught us that rationality involves much more than just controlling the emotions and avoiding fallacies. Today’s rational animal—what we call the critical thinker—must understand the unconscious biases that are directing many of our most important judgments and decisions. The Critical Thinker’s Dictionary explores the insights of ancient and modern philosophers along with the latest findings in such fields as neuroscience and behavioral economics to lay out the many obstacles and snares that await anyone committed to a rational life. The Critical Thinker’s Dictionary isn’t a collection of dry definitions, but a colorful, three-dimensional portrait of the major obstacles to critical thinking and what we can do to overcome them.
350 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 11, 2013
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269 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 7, 2017
How about a game of critical thinker's bingo with all the fallacies and biases in a nice grid to gather points while reading a newspaper or some discussion?
My first idea was that this must be exactly what little kids on Vulcan would learn.
Carroll present the fallacies and biases and illusions and gives examples of them.
I think it's a book that would be useful to read for most people and should be compulsory for some :)
More here
My first idea was that this must be exactly what little kids on Vulcan would learn.
Carroll present the fallacies and biases and illusions and gives examples of them.
I think it's a book that would be useful to read for most people and should be compulsory for some :)
More here
December 4, 2016
Great resource. Well done, cross-referenced with hyperlinks (too many people don't know that many biases and fallacies lead to or are products of others, let alone even know what they are). Good, real life examples to help the uninitiated understand the concepts, and provide the initiated with a quick reference to tools to help explain the concepts to others.
Should be required reading for all three branches of the government.
And anybody living on social media.
Should be required reading for all three branches of the government.
And anybody living on social media.
August 7, 2020
Another great book on critical thinking. In order to best express ourselves, we need to know how to think clearly and systematically — meaning practice critical thinking. Critical thinking also means knowing how to break down texts, and in turn, improve our ability to comprehend. In learning how to analyse the logical structure of texts, critical thinking improves comprehension abilities. Without critical thinking, how can we really live a meaningful life?
We need this skill to self-reflect and justify our ways of life and opinions. Critical thinking provides us with the tools to evaluate ourselves in the way that we need to.
Critical thinking is crucial for many career paths. Not just for scientists, but lawyers, doctors, reporters, engineers, accountants, and analysts (among many others) all have to use critical thinking in their positions.
Those with critical thinking skills tend to solve problems as part of their natural instinct. Critical thinkers are patient and committed to solving the problem, similar to Albert Einstein, one of the best critical thinking examples, who said “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
We need this skill to self-reflect and justify our ways of life and opinions. Critical thinking provides us with the tools to evaluate ourselves in the way that we need to.
Critical thinking is crucial for many career paths. Not just for scientists, but lawyers, doctors, reporters, engineers, accountants, and analysts (among many others) all have to use critical thinking in their positions.
Those with critical thinking skills tend to solve problems as part of their natural instinct. Critical thinkers are patient and committed to solving the problem, similar to Albert Einstein, one of the best critical thinking examples, who said “It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
January 16, 2021
This is an excellent treatment of fallacies in human thinking. You have your logical fallacies, cognitive fallacies, bias based fallacies, and general shenanigans caused by faulty human thinking. Not only does Carroll elucidate these fallacies, but he recommends how to deal with them when confronting claims made by others and how to avoid falling victim to them yourself. We're all evolved to think heuristically, because mistaking motion in the tall grass as a sign of a large predatory animal rather than the benevolent variability of the breezy wind results in more survivors who can reproduce, and so - here we are - dumbasses all. Well, we don't have to accept being dumbasses any more than we have to accept being earth bound, now do we? No! Hell, we invented planes, so we can fly! We discovered the many nuances of how our brains trick us into faulty thinking, so we invented critical thinking so that we don't get fooled again by things like superstition, pseudoscience, theologians, politicians, economists, talking heads on news networks and the shenanigans of hucksters seeking to perform a wallet extraction on us. Learn to think for yourself and become dedicated, not to being right all the time, but being less wrong more often than not.
August 3, 2017
An excellent primer on every conceivable logical fallacy and shortcoming one can think of, and many you can't. While it's far from the last word on this subject, it serves as a wonderful introduction for those wishing to delve deeper into the murky world of human psychological failings. An essential handbook for any philosophy student or those wishing to explore why people believe the crazy things they do.
August 22, 2019
Look, if you can't make a useful skill like critical thinking into something lively and engaging without pasting your worldview all over it in a condescending manner, how do you think you're ever gonna reach the very people you are criticizing for not thinking? THERE ARE EVEN WHOLE SECTIONS ON THIS!
You can find equally valuable videos on youtube. Here's one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf03U...
September 7, 2018
Very good technical read where the author has listed and explored most of our biases in detail with lots of examples. Could not finish the book though because after a point it was belaboring. I would recommended this book though specially when you need to make high stakes decisions. In this day and age of decide do quick and fail early, this book is a more time tested philosophy.
October 24, 2021
I’ve read a number of books on critical thinking, most of which I enjoyed. This is really useful and practical. A lot of the ideas in it were not new to me but they were explained so well. I highly recommended reading this book to have an understanding of how to verify information.
March 1, 2014
One of my favorite websites is Science Based Medicine. So when Dr. Harriett Hall recommended this book I snapped it up.
Many people I know believe weird things for weird reasons. But when their ideas are challenged and they are shown evidence that contradicts their beliefs, they are unwilling to change their minds. They repeat and restate. They become defensive, evasive, and angry. But what they don't do is argue, because they don't know what an argument is. They simply stop listening and declare the discussion over.
I've been a critical thinker most of my life. It doesn't make me popular. I often find myself thinking or saying, "but that doesn't make sense. If you just look at it this way..." And then I try to explain how the evidence doesn't support the person's claim. Or I ask how they came to believe something, and they think I am questioning their wisdom and get angry.
I'm not sure how or when I became skeptical; when I was a teenager my mother would complain I was always so "negative." It was more than teen rebellion, though, and I have learned much since. I didn't know anything about formal argumentation. I just knew I required better evidence before deciding what to believe.
Case in point. I mentioned to a coworker that Dr. Oz is spreading a particular bit of misinformation. Her response? "I like Dr. Oz." Translation: "The facts don't matter to me; I will believe anything Dr. Oz has to say." Because Dr. Oz is such a powerful voice in the media, and because this is how his fans (fanatics) think, he is very dangerous. (Straw man, argument ad populum, appeal to authority, appeal to irrelevant authority, backfire effect.)
It is unfortunate that critical thinking isn't taught. In this information age we have so many decisions to make and so many ways we can be fooled by people who are expert at manipulation and by our own thinking. It would seem people would want to learn critical thinking because it would enable them to defend themselves against bad decision making. But no. In fact, when faced with evidence contrary to their beliefs, they will cling to them more fiercely (the backfire effect). I know it as sunk costs. ("I can't be wrong about this; I have invested resources in it and/or my pride won't let me admit I may have made a mistake and change my mind.")
I have [anecdotal] evidence that critical thinking isn't taught in nursing school. After I had a bicycle accident, a friend who is a student tried to convince me to see a chiropractor. He gave me some anecdotes. When I said show me the science, he added more anecdotes. One of his assignments was evaluating a health news story. It was flawed and misleading, but he was totally uncritical. He asked me to critique his essay, and when I questioned him on these things, rather than change his mind he argued with me, saying he had more expertise and experience than me, and deferred to the authority of his teacher, who was also uncritical of the article. (Ad hominem, appeal to authority.) Other nurses I know use acupuncture and other forms of CAM. A dental assistant told me she didn't come from a monkey. This was in response to the dentist and me wondering why evolution hadn't rid us of our wisdom teeth. (I wonder why she bothers with sterilization procedures or personal protective equipment. There were no germs or viruses on Noah's ark!) This is scary. Nurses could kill people with bad decisions. An example is those who refuse to get the flu vaccine even though they come in contact with frail or immune compromised people because they believe getting vaccinated violates their own rights!
I often wonder what poor thinking I am engaging in without being aware of it. For instance, as a skeptic I thought I was not influenced by the placebo effect. But the book clarified for me that conditioning probably has much to do with how well ibuprofen works for me, and conversely how acetaminophen and naproxen don't, because the placebo effect applies to real medicine as well as sham medicine.
This will be a great reference. Rather than using the principles here to argue with irrational people, I'll use them to have enjoyable discussions with other critical thinkers and to try to keep my self from veering into silliness.
There's one thing I'd like to see corrected. "Darwinism" is described as a polemical term used by anti-evolutionists to define evolution. I think evolutionists would disagree. They use it all the time to describe themselves. Perhaps it, like suffragette, the Big Bang and Obamacare, began as polemical but has been adopted by its targets.
Also, the book could have been more carefully edited. For instance, in the entry on Control Group Study, there was a mention of a study on the efficacy of prayer on AIDS patients as if it were a hypothetical. However, I had heard of the actual study and wondered why it was left unexplained. Then I found more about it in the entry on Suppressed Evidence. There should have been a cross-reference there.
Many people I know believe weird things for weird reasons. But when their ideas are challenged and they are shown evidence that contradicts their beliefs, they are unwilling to change their minds. They repeat and restate. They become defensive, evasive, and angry. But what they don't do is argue, because they don't know what an argument is. They simply stop listening and declare the discussion over.
I've been a critical thinker most of my life. It doesn't make me popular. I often find myself thinking or saying, "but that doesn't make sense. If you just look at it this way..." And then I try to explain how the evidence doesn't support the person's claim. Or I ask how they came to believe something, and they think I am questioning their wisdom and get angry.
I'm not sure how or when I became skeptical; when I was a teenager my mother would complain I was always so "negative." It was more than teen rebellion, though, and I have learned much since. I didn't know anything about formal argumentation. I just knew I required better evidence before deciding what to believe.
Case in point. I mentioned to a coworker that Dr. Oz is spreading a particular bit of misinformation. Her response? "I like Dr. Oz." Translation: "The facts don't matter to me; I will believe anything Dr. Oz has to say." Because Dr. Oz is such a powerful voice in the media, and because this is how his fans (fanatics) think, he is very dangerous. (Straw man, argument ad populum, appeal to authority, appeal to irrelevant authority, backfire effect.)
It is unfortunate that critical thinking isn't taught. In this information age we have so many decisions to make and so many ways we can be fooled by people who are expert at manipulation and by our own thinking. It would seem people would want to learn critical thinking because it would enable them to defend themselves against bad decision making. But no. In fact, when faced with evidence contrary to their beliefs, they will cling to them more fiercely (the backfire effect). I know it as sunk costs. ("I can't be wrong about this; I have invested resources in it and/or my pride won't let me admit I may have made a mistake and change my mind.")
I have [anecdotal] evidence that critical thinking isn't taught in nursing school. After I had a bicycle accident, a friend who is a student tried to convince me to see a chiropractor. He gave me some anecdotes. When I said show me the science, he added more anecdotes. One of his assignments was evaluating a health news story. It was flawed and misleading, but he was totally uncritical. He asked me to critique his essay, and when I questioned him on these things, rather than change his mind he argued with me, saying he had more expertise and experience than me, and deferred to the authority of his teacher, who was also uncritical of the article. (Ad hominem, appeal to authority.) Other nurses I know use acupuncture and other forms of CAM. A dental assistant told me she didn't come from a monkey. This was in response to the dentist and me wondering why evolution hadn't rid us of our wisdom teeth. (I wonder why she bothers with sterilization procedures or personal protective equipment. There were no germs or viruses on Noah's ark!) This is scary. Nurses could kill people with bad decisions. An example is those who refuse to get the flu vaccine even though they come in contact with frail or immune compromised people because they believe getting vaccinated violates their own rights!
I often wonder what poor thinking I am engaging in without being aware of it. For instance, as a skeptic I thought I was not influenced by the placebo effect. But the book clarified for me that conditioning probably has much to do with how well ibuprofen works for me, and conversely how acetaminophen and naproxen don't, because the placebo effect applies to real medicine as well as sham medicine.
This will be a great reference. Rather than using the principles here to argue with irrational people, I'll use them to have enjoyable discussions with other critical thinkers and to try to keep my self from veering into silliness.
There's one thing I'd like to see corrected. "Darwinism" is described as a polemical term used by anti-evolutionists to define evolution. I think evolutionists would disagree. They use it all the time to describe themselves. Perhaps it, like suffragette, the Big Bang and Obamacare, began as polemical but has been adopted by its targets.
Also, the book could have been more carefully edited. For instance, in the entry on Control Group Study, there was a mention of a study on the efficacy of prayer on AIDS patients as if it were a hypothetical. However, I had heard of the actual study and wondered why it was left unexplained. Then I found more about it in the entry on Suppressed Evidence. There should have been a cross-reference there.
June 20, 2017
I found this book to be enjoyable as well as informative. I did find some of the examples reaching—or perhaps subject to their own bias, but if the title is of interest to you, I am pretty sure you'll enjoy it. If you are not a fan of logical thinking, you may not be such a fan.
March 6, 2014
Quite entertaining even though it was a simple progression of different biases, fallacies and illusions.
April 24, 2017
Pretty good book. A lot of empiric information about many fallacies. Not perfect, since some of them were explained with too many examples and some of them with not enough of them. But all in all pretty good. Liked it.
Update: This book influenced my way of thinking about many topics. I started to appreciate it even more.
Update: This book influenced my way of thinking about many topics. I started to appreciate it even more.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews