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Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World
Brought to you by Penguin.
We think we know bullshit when we hear it, but do we? A spotter's guide to bullshit in the wild from two brilliantly contrarian scientists
The world is awash in bullshit, and we're drowning in it. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Start-up culture elevates hype to high art. These days, calling bullshit is a noble act.
Based on a popular course at the University of Washington, Calling Bullshit gives us the tools to see through the obfuscations, deliberate and careless, that dominate every realm of our lives. In this lively guide, biologist Carl Bergstrom and statistician Jevin West show that calling bullshit is crucial to a properly functioning social group, whether it be a circle of friends, a community of researchers, or the citizens of a nation. Through six rules of thumb, they help us recognize bullshit whenever and wherever we encounter it -- even within ourselves -- and explain it to a crystal-loving aunt or casually racist grandfather.
Calling Bullshit is a modern handbook to the art of scepticism.
Carl T. Bergstrom, Jevin D. West 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020
We think we know bullshit when we hear it, but do we? A spotter's guide to bullshit in the wild from two brilliantly contrarian scientists
The world is awash in bullshit, and we're drowning in it. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Start-up culture elevates hype to high art. These days, calling bullshit is a noble act.
Based on a popular course at the University of Washington, Calling Bullshit gives us the tools to see through the obfuscations, deliberate and careless, that dominate every realm of our lives. In this lively guide, biologist Carl Bergstrom and statistician Jevin West show that calling bullshit is crucial to a properly functioning social group, whether it be a circle of friends, a community of researchers, or the citizens of a nation. Through six rules of thumb, they help us recognize bullshit whenever and wherever we encounter it -- even within ourselves -- and explain it to a crystal-loving aunt or casually racist grandfather.
Calling Bullshit is a modern handbook to the art of scepticism.
Carl T. Bergstrom, Jevin D. West 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020
Audible Audio
Published August 4, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 26, 2026
I think overall this book is a mix between being writting for lay people and trying to be a bit more "advanced". It's a good book for anyone who hasn't been introduced to the scientific methodology and who wants to be a bit better at examining statements. I found the book overall to be a bit boring and long-winded. It's similar to the book "bad science" by Ben Goldacre but that one was way easier or less "complicated" to read and fulfills the same purpose.
Overall take away points for me was
The "Berkson's paradox" and it occurs when conditioning on a selected samples creates a false correlation between variables that are independent in the full population. Classical examples are hospital patients,
Trait A: having disease X
Trait B: having disease Y
People are hospitalized if they have either disease, which if u would make a investigation having disease X makes it less likely you have diseasy Y (even though they are unrelated in reality)
Friendship paradox: In a social network, the average amou of your friends is higher than your own average degree, because nodes with many connections are more likely to be reached when sampling via edges rather than via nodes.
Bullshit spreads way faster than facts and even if they are disproven the myths remains.
And finally GIGO: Garbage in = garbage out, you don't always have to dig into statistics to know if a study result is legit or not, if the data in is scewed then the outcome will be aswell.
Overall take away points for me was
The "Berkson's paradox" and it occurs when conditioning on a selected samples creates a false correlation between variables that are independent in the full population. Classical examples are hospital patients,
Trait A: having disease X
Trait B: having disease Y
People are hospitalized if they have either disease, which if u would make a investigation having disease X makes it less likely you have diseasy Y (even though they are unrelated in reality)
Friendship paradox: In a social network, the average amou of your friends is higher than your own average degree, because nodes with many connections are more likely to be reached when sampling via edges rather than via nodes.
Bullshit spreads way faster than facts and even if they are disproven the myths remains.
And finally GIGO: Garbage in = garbage out, you don't always have to dig into statistics to know if a study result is legit or not, if the data in is scewed then the outcome will be aswell.
February 2, 2025
I really wanted to like this book. Instead, I skipped over multiple pages and found the same topics revisited and reexamined over and over again. Even when new topics were introduced, it was so excessively explained and unnecessarily verbose the point gets lost within the first paragraph.
Why? There was so much potential here. Two highly educated authors instead offer a level of investigation such that nobody in a quantitative field or background would find anything they didn’t already know. Or anything past a first level of undergraduate study to be honest.
I’ve read wonderful books that call into question the quality and power of data. Think anything by Malcolm Gladwell. I did not finish this book, but I hope at least that the audience for this book that isn’t from a statistical field found use in it.
Why? There was so much potential here. Two highly educated authors instead offer a level of investigation such that nobody in a quantitative field or background would find anything they didn’t already know. Or anything past a first level of undergraduate study to be honest.
I’ve read wonderful books that call into question the quality and power of data. Think anything by Malcolm Gladwell. I did not finish this book, but I hope at least that the audience for this book that isn’t from a statistical field found use in it.
December 12, 2024
Spotting bullshit is a private activity. Calling bullshit is a public one. However, if you had taken at least one course of mathematics or economics at university - you can easily skip this book. Nothing new for anyone who has any kind numbers or technical background. Basically it is similar to books about good nutrition habits written for Americans with suggestions like: you should not eat something that you can't understand what it was cooked from.
March 23, 2024
Too much examples without generalization of truly calling bullshxt.
July 7, 2025
I will definitely use this book as a reading for a critical thinking course in the future.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews