Jon Glatfelter
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AN ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF BAD ARGUMENTS

1/31/2017

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"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself
and you are the easiest person to fool."

— Richard P. Feynman
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Straw Men. Slippery Slopes. Circular Reasonings. Ad Hominen attacks. Appeals to Fear, Ignorance, and irrelevant Authorities. Equivocation. — in a word, politicians. 

But actually, logical fallacies run rampant much closer to home: up and down our Facebook threads, throughout conversations with friends, and, yes, in our own minds. An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi maps 19 of these fallacies with the "hope that you leave with greater awareness of the dangers of flimsy arguments and how commonplace they are in our everyday lives." 

WHY I RECOMMEND READING IT
Pictures! Cute, funny pictures — with animals! They make the expedition through illogic land a laugh out loud page-turner. Along the way you'll meet a mischaracterized toucan, who's fallen victim to a Straw Man attack, an election-losing frog who's opponent used fear-mongering to spread anti-frog feelings, two bickering bears trying to one-up one another by pointing out the other's hypocrisy, and a ton more. 

Second, part of doing anything is learning what not to do. From the book's Introduction: "In his book On Writing, Stephen King writes, 'One learns most clearly what not to do by reading a bad prose.' He describes his experience of reading a particularly terrible novel as 'the literary equivalent of a smallpox vaccination.'"

FAVORITE SECTIONS
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
Author Ali Almossawi works as a data visualization designer on Mozilla's Metrics Team in San Francisco. His work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired, The New York Times, and Fast Company. I just pre-ordered his second book, Bad Choices: How Algorithmns Can Help You Think Smarter And Live Happier from Amazon, which ships April 4th, 2017. 

Illustrator Alejandro Giraldo is a freelance artist living and working in Medellín, Columbia. He's the co-founder of Velmost clothing line and really really really likes Wes Anderson. 
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OTHER POSTS YOU MAY LIKE
{ * } The Indispensable Calvin & Hobbes {My Rec}

{ * } Save Our Souls: An interview with artist Cyril Rolando

{ * } The Best Books I Read In 2016
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    SAVE OUR SOULS
    An Interview
    with artist Cyril Rolando
    ​

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    ANTHEM
    Ayn Rand

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    EXTREME OWNERSHIP
    Jocko Willink & Leif Babin
    ​

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    TOP BOOKS 2016
    My 10 favorite
    (re)reads of 2016
    ​

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    AN ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF BAD ARGUMENTS
    Ali Almossawi
    ​

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    BOOKS OF HUCKBERRY
    Summer 2016
    ​
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    Zorro: The Complete Pulp Adventures
    Johnston McCulley
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    MEDITATIONS
    Marcus Aurelius
    ​

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    DRAGON TEETH
    Michael Crichton
    ​

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    CHANTECLER
    Edmond Rostand
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I've been reading a book a week for 15+ years. On here, I share my favorites, fiction and nonfiction alike, as well as interviews with authors, artists, and entrepreneurs I admire. If you'd like to join a family of 5,000+ creatives, subscribe for the Reading List, a monthly email round-up for plenty of leads on your next read.