Book Shelf

Welcome to The Fallacy Files book shelf, which is a collection of reviews of books related in some way to logical fallacies, whether exposing them or committing them. The following navigation catalog is arranged alphabetically by author's last name. Click on the title of any of the books to jump to its review:

The Fallacy Files Book Shelf
Author(s) Title Subtitle
Joel Best Damned Lies and Statistics Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians and Activists
Rob Brotherton Suspicious Minds Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories
Rhonda Byrne The Secret
S. Morris Engel With Good Reason An Introduction to Informal Fallacies
David Hackett Fischer Historians' Fallacies Toward a Logic of Historical Thought
Dorian Lynskey The Ministry of Truth The Biography of George Orwell's 1984
Madsen Pirie The Book of the Fallacy A Training Manual for Intellectual Subversives
Thomas Rid Active Measures The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare
Gary Smith Standard Deviations Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics
D. J. Taylor On 1984 A Biography of George Orwell's Masterpiece
Robert Thornton LIAR

Introduction

Title: With Good Reason

Subtitle: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies

Author: S. Morris Engel

Edition: Fifth

Year: 1994

Review: Unfortunately, as its subtitle indicates, With Good Reason does not cover formal logical fallacies. However, it is one of the best introductions to informal ones.

For those who are new to logic, there is introductory material on arguments, the central notions of validity and soundness, and the distinction between deduction and induction. Engel also explains linguistic issues which play an important role in many informal fallacies, such as ambiguity and vagueness.

Unlike many textbooks, this one includes many "raw" examples, taken from the popular press, instead of just "cooked-up" ones. Cooked-up examples have both advantages and disadvantages: The advantages include the ease of acquiring examples—just cook them up!—as well as the fact that they can be constructed to be both obvious and unambiguous. This is good for learning the distinctions between different fallacies, and the basics of spotting fallacious arguments. The disadvantages, however, include the fact that fallacious arguments in their natural settings are much harder to spot than are the artificial examples in most textbooks. Engel's text is a step in the direction of providing practice on realistic examples.

Many of the raw examples that Engel gives are not arguments, so they are not full-fledged examples of fallacies, but boobytraps. Of course, boobytraps are fallacies waiting to happen, so they are legitimate examples, but the reader should keep this distinction in mind.

Engel divides informal fallacies into three broad categories:

"Presumption" seems to be a "miscellaneous" category to catch the fallacies which don't easily fit into the other two categories, so this grouping shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Engel describes, and provides examples of, over thirty specific informal fallacies, including the most frequently occurring ones, and those most prominently discussed in the logical literature. If you want to learn about informal logical fallacies, this is a good place to start.

Also, by the same author:

Top Shelf

Title: Damned Lies and Statistics

Subtitle: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists

Author: Joel Best

Date of Publication: 2001

Quote: "This book offers some guidelines for thinking critically about social statistics. It identifies some common problems with social statistics and illustrates them with specific examples. It is often easier to understand a particular example than to understand and recognize the general problem or principle that the example illustrates. Still, I hope that, having read this book, you [will] become more familiar with some of the most common flaws that bedevil social statistics; that you can ask some basic questions about a statistic's origins (definition, measurement, sampling, and the other issues covered in chapter 2); that you are familiar with some of the ways that statistics can be mangled (chapter 3); that you understand the risks of inappropriate comparisons (chapter 4); and that you can do more than simply throw up your hands when confronted with a debate featuring competing statistics (chapter 5)." (Pp. 161-162)

Review: Joel Best is a sociologist and, as a result, this is not a book about the mathematics of statistics, but about its sociology. That is, it's about the ways in which bad statistics are generated and spread through society.

People tend to accept statistics as facts, but all statistics are created by people, and many of those people have agendas. Social statistics―statistics about social problems, such as prostitution or suicide―are often produced by activists who are concerned about the problem, and may exaggerate it. When not produced by activists, statistics are often a product of government, which may be motivated in the opposite direction of the activists, namely, to play down a problem.

Given that statistics are created by people, there are three questions that should be asked about them, according to Best:

  1. Who created the statistic? (P. 27)
  2. Why was the statistic created? (P. 28)
  3. How was the statistic created?

Answering questions 1 and 2 may give reasons to doubt the statistic's accuracy, if the source has a motive for exaggerating or downplaying it (1), or if it was created to advance a particular cause or to sell a product (2). Also, if you can answer the first two questions, you may be able to allow for the bias of a statistic. In contrast, learning that the source was unbiased should increase your confidence in the statistic.

However, most of the book concerns question 3, that is, the way in which flawed statistics are produced. There are four main ways that people come up with bad statistics, according to Best (Ch. 2):

  1. Guessing (p. 32): Guessing about social statistics is more common than you might think. Social problems that have been ignored or are hard to count―such as rape, prostitution, homosexuality, AIDS, etc.―have a "dark figure", that is, a number of cases that are not counted for various reasons, including embarrassment or fear of arrest. So, when activists or bureaucrats are called upon by reporters to estimate the size of a problem, they may have to guess.
  2. Bad Definitions (p. 39): Most social problems are vague, for instance, child abuse: non-abusive treatment of children gradually shades over into abusive beatings or neglect. In order to count instances of child abuse, decisions must be made about whether to include or exclude borderline cases. Those who wish to call attention to the problem are motivated to include borderline cases, while those who want to ignore it will exclude those same cases. Both sides may claim to be counting incidents of "child abuse", though they come up with different numbers.

    Also, activists tend to pick extreme examples to publicize a problem (p. 56). Such examples are selected because they are not typical of the problem, yet they may mislead people into committing the Anecdotal Fallacy. For example, in order to call attention to the problem of child abuse, activists may point to a case of murder, though neglect is a more typical form of abuse.

  3. Flawed Measurement (pp. 45-52): Flawed measurement can come about through badly-worded survey questions, for instance. However, if I have one criticism of this book, it is that Best's main illustration of the problem of flawed measurement is "poverty". While there are doubtlessly measurement problems involved in counting the poor, Best's discussion centers on a definition problem, and thus belongs under the previous heading. "Poverty" is a vague concept, which leads to all of the problems mentioned above of counting the number of cases of vague concepts, and of contrary definitions used by those with competing interests, so well explained by Best in the rest of the book.
  4. Weak Sampling (p. 52): Poor sampling takes two forms:
    1. Samples that are too small: See the entry for Hasty Generalization.
    2. Unrepresentative Samples: See the entry of the same name.

    Another all too common source of weak samples is what's known as "convenience sampling" (p. 55): a convenience sample is a nonrandom, "unscientific" sample that is drawn in whatever way is most convenient. Such samples are cheap and easy, which is what makes them "convenient", and also what makes them attractive to the media or interest groups. However, the most convenient sample is likely to be unrepresentative of the larger population. When you read that a poll is "scientific" that means that it was conducted using random sampling, as opposed to convenience sampling.

Even when all of these pitfalls have been avoided and good statistics produced, there are still what Best calls "mutant statistics". These are numbers that have been reported and passed from person to person, mutating in the process, as in the game of "telephone". Such mutations can come about through incorrect generalizations, misinterpretation, or misunderstanding. For example, an estimate that 150,000 American women had anorexia mutated into the claim that that many women died of anorexia each year (pp. 63-64).

Finally, there is the "apples to oranges" comparison. One of the most common such comparisons is the comparing of prices at different times. Because of inflation, money tends to lose value over time, which means that comparing the price of, say, a gallon of gasoline today with one ten years ago is an "apples to oranges" comparison. To compare apples to apples or oranges to oranges, monetary comparisons need to take inflation into account.

"Stat wars" occur when competing interests advance contrary statistics for a problem and attack each others numbers. It's hard to untangle the statistics bandied about in the press by activists and politicians during such wars, because the media often just report the different numbers without attempting to figure out which are right, leaving most of their readers in the dark (p. 137). Of course, if different sides are using contrary definitions of a problem, then each side's numbers may be right; but this won't be obvious if the different definitions are not reported, as is often the case. Luckily, in the years since Best's book was published, there are a number of new media outlets that look critically at statistics, such as The Wall Street Journal's "Numbers Guy", and Annenberg Political Fact Check.

The final chapter (ch. 6) discusses four mindsets towards social statistics:

  1. Awestruck (p. 162): Treating statistics as unchallengeable facts.
  2. Naive (p. 162): This is where most of us are.
  3. Cynical (p. 164): The cynical treat all statistics as "damned lies" and reject them without due consideration. Also, from the ranks of the cynics come some of the worst statistical abuses.
  4. Critical (p. 166): A critical mindset does not swallow all statistics whole―as the awestruck do―nor does it reject them all without thought―as the cynics do.

These same mindsets apply more generally to argumentation. One of the dangers of a book such as this is that learning about misleading statistics may lead to a cynical dismissal of all statistics. Similarly, learning about logical fallacies may lead to the rejection of all argumentation as untrustworthy. Like Best, I hope that my readers will not turn into cynics but into critics.

The title of this book is, of course, taken from the cynical phrase "lies, damned lies, and statistics", which is usually interpreted as grouping statistics with lies. Perhaps a more apt, more critical title would come from the phrase: "figures don't lie, but liars can figure". Despite its cynical title, Best's book is one of the best ways to learn how to cease being awestruck by statistics and to start critically evaluating them.

Also, by the same author:

Title: Standard Deviations

Sub-Title: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics

Author: Gary Smith

Publisher: Overlook

Date of Publication: 2014

Quote: "Sometimes, the unscrupulous deliberately try to mislead us. Other times, the well-intentioned are blissfully unaware of the mischief they are committing. My intention in writing this book is to help protect us from errors―both external and self-inflicted. You will learn simple guidelines for recognizing bull when you see it―or say it. Not only do others use data to fool us, we often fool ourselves.1"

Review: Not long ago, I remarked that there has been a spate of books in the last several years about how to detect misinformation on the internet and elsewhere2. This is one of those I mentioned, and it's a good one. With the current concern about the influence of fake news, it's as timely as when it first appeared several years ago.

If you want to learn statistics, I can recommend a few good textbooks, but this is not one of them. That's because it's not a textbook at all, but a book on statistics for us non-statisticians. We may not be statisticians, but we are consumers of statistics. Politicians, activists, advertisers, and others, use statistics to influence us to vote for them, support their causes, or buy their products. Unfortunately, many of these statistics are impostors, and most of us don't know how to separate the statistical sheep from the wolves-in-sheeps'-clothing. If you're not a statistician, then this book's for you.

The author of this book, Gary Smith, is an economist, but he's also authored statistics textbooks. I haven't read any of them, but if they're as good as this non-textbook, I would recommend them as well.

I actually learned some things from this book. I write that with some surprise because I've read several books that cover much the same territory, and some of which were excellent. Not only that, but I've written entries on some of the fallacies discussed by Smith, so that most of what is covered here is familiar ground to me. Here is a selective outline of topics covered in this book:

Recommendation: Highly recommended for non-statisticians and other non-experts.

Notes:

  1. P. 5; page citations are to the book reviewed.
  2. New Book: A Field Guide to Lies, 10/19/2016.
  3. Check 'Em Out, 1/21/2010.
  4. Michael Shermer, "Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise", Scientific American, 12/1/2008.
  5. Pp. 7-11.
  6. New Book: Standard Deviations, 8/30/2014.
  7. Chapter 2; chapter citations are to the book reviewed.
  8. Chapter 5.
  9. Pp. 125-126, Chapter 10; see, also: The Gambler's Fallacy.
  10. Pp. 127-135; see, also: The Hot Hand Fallacy.
  11. Chapter 9; see, also: The Regression Fallacy.
  12. Chapter 11; see, also: The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Title: Active Measures

Quote: "The goal of disinformation is to engineer division by putting emotion over analysis, division over unity, conflict over consensus, the particular over the universal. For, after all, a democracy's approach to the truth is not simply an epistemic question, but an existential question. Putting objectivity before ideology contributed to opening societies, and to keeping them open. Putting ideology before objectivity, by contrast, contributed to closing societies, and to keeping them closed. It is therefore no coincidence that objectivity was under near-constant assault in the ideologically torn twentieth century."1

Comment: "Active measures" (AMs) is a literal translation of a Russian phrase. Of course, it literally means "doing something", as opposed to doing nothing, which tells you nothing. Apparently coined by the KGB, it was used by that organization to refer to measures "ranging from media manipulation to 'special actions' involving various degrees of violence2"―in other words, just about anything. Thus, it's a doublespeak phrase used to refer to various secret operations undertaken by a government usually against a foreign nation. This book primarily concerns actions on the "non-violent end of the active measures spectrum", including "information operations"2. Here is how the book explains it:

First, and most important, active measures are not spontaneous lies by politicians, but the methodical output of large bureaucracies. … Second, all active measures contain an element of disinformation: content may be forged, sourcing doctored, the method of acquisition covert…. Third, an active measure is always directed toward an end, usually to weaken the targeted adversary. The means may vary: creating divisions between allied nations, driving wedges between ethnic groups, creating friction between individuals in a group or party, undermining the trust specific groups in a society have in its institutions.3

Subtitle: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare

Comment: This book is indeed a history, but I doubt that there's anything in it that is still "secret". Obviously, the word secret is meant to pique your interest, but all of the history recounted here has already been made public, as far as I can tell.

The English word disinformation seems to have originally been a non-standard, and perhaps humorous, synonym for "misinformation". However, the similar Russian word, "dezinformatsiya", was used in the Soviet Union to refer to AMs involving intentionally created or spread misinformation. While the communist party created and spread misinformation within the Soviet Union, that was not called "dezinformatsiya". Rather, disinformation was targeted at other countries, usually with the aim of exacerbating problems within the target country or driving a wedge between it and its allies. As a result, the English word has come to mean misinformation coming from a government and usually intended to harm a rival nation4.

So, disinformation is similar to what's called "fake news", but not the same thing. "Fake news" refers to alleged misinformation that is created by political parties or activists, and intentionally spread via the news media within a country in order to influence its internal politics.

Author: Thomas Rid

Comment: According to the book's jacket, Rid is a professor of information security, which means that his academic specialty is in the area of computers and protection against hacking, viruses, and malicious software. This is not the background that I would expect for a history of disinformation, but there is no academic specialization in disinformation, as far as I know; if there were, I suppose that it would combine history with rhetoric or philosophy. Also, as one might expect from Rid's background, the book is biased towards AMs that involve computers, hacking, and the leaking of hacked information.

Date: 2020

Summary: The book is divided into five, somewhat arbitrary, historical periods:

  1. From the end of the first world war (WWI) to the end of the second (WWII): This is probably the least well-known historical period covered by the book, and I was not familiar with any of the disinformation measures, mainly forgeries, described. Unfortunately, it's probably also the least interesting period for the modern reader, and I would suggest either patience or skipping it: the book gets better.
  2. From the end of WWII to 1960: Most of the material in this section was new to me, especially that concerning the anti-semitic and racist forgeries committed by the Soviet Union (USSR) in the 1950s (chapters 9-10). The anti-semitic ones were intended to harm West Germany by exaggerating the extent to which there were still Nazis there, while the racist ones were aimed at hurting the international reputation of the United States.
  3. 1961-1975: As I've claimed, above, this book is limited by the time period it covers, but it's also not comprehensive in its treatment of AMs within that period. I don't consider this a major criticism in itself, but I am disappointed that the book has nothing to say about the Soviet AMs after the Kennedy assassination―in fact, "John F. Kennedy" does not even appear in the Index! It's been known for some years that the USSR engaged in various AMs designed to spread the conspiracy theory that the CIA killed Kennedy5. This may well have been the most successful disinformation campaign conducted by the USSR against the USA, judging from public opinion polls.
  4. From 1975 to the fall of the USSR: Oddly enough, though this was the final period of Soviet disinformation it seems to have been its heyday. It's also the second most important section of the book as some of the disinformation described in it is still believed today; for instance, the conspiracy theory that the United States created HIV began as disinformation (chapter 22). I would suggest that even the most impatient reader read this entire section, or at a minimum chapter 22.
  5. From the fall of the USSR to 2014: This section begins the modern period of computer-aided AMs. Though Russia's disinformation tactics may have diminished with the end of the USSR, they appear to never have completely stopped, and have continued with the rise of Putin. Also, of course, the last thirty years have seen the spread of computers and the internet. As a result, the internet and so-called social media have become the main outlets for modern disinformation campaigns.
  6. 2015-2017: This section covers only three years, but an important trio of years for us today, since they include the election of 2016 and possible Russian AMs affecting it.

Review: First, the positive points:

Recommendation: Recommended. As mentioned in the Review, above, this is not a complete history of disinformation, but it's the closest we have, and even a partial history covering only the last century is welcome.

This is a long book and if, like me, you're primarily interested in disinformation, you could skip the fifth part of the book on hacking. However, I recommend not skipping the last part, on the hacking and leaking that took place around the election in 2016. This is, of course, still an important topic, and Rid dispels some misinformation, if not disinformation, about it.

One lesson of logic is that the truth of our premisses is as important as the correctness of our reasoning. Disinformation is an organized attempt to pollute those premisses with falsehoods, and is just as dangerous to our understanding of the world as fallacious reasoning. Because it is secret, the truth about disinformation often isn't known until many years after it is propagated. If it hadn't been for the fall of the USSR, it's possible that we still wouldn't know how disinformation contributed to the conspiracy theories about JFK and AIDS that too many Americans still believe. For these reasons, as an act of intellectual hygiene, we need to clean out the disinformation that has accumulated in our mental attics. This book can help begin that clean up.

Notes:

  1. P. 426. All page citations are to the reviewed book.
  2. Christopher Andrew & Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (1999), p. 224.
  3. P. 9.
  4. See: "The Real Story of 'Disinformation'", Merriam-Webster, accessed: 7/20/2022.
  5. See: Max Holland, "The Lie That Linked CIA to the Kennedy Assassination", Studies in Intelligence (2001), Vol. 45, No. 5. See, also, Andrew & Mitrokhin, pp. 226-229, for earlier Kennedy assassination AMs.
  6. One that I did notice is in the following sentence: "Some of Bittman's StB colleagues looked at him tersely…." (Pp. 148-149) It's not possible to look "tersely" at someone, since "tersely" is a synonym of "concisely" that means "using few words", thus applying literally only to uses of language and not to looks. See: "Tersely", Cambridge Dictionary, accessed: 7/20/2022. My guess is that Rid wrote "tensely", or at least intended to, and the "n" somehow became an "r". Of course, this is the sort of misspelling that spelling and grammar checking programs will not catch, since both words are English adverbs.
  7. See: "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed: 7/20/2022.
  8. See: "Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Facts & Related Content", Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed: 7/20/2022.
  9. Chapter 6.
  10. According to Rid, a socialist party, but he never explains what the initials stand for; p. 89.
  11. Rid writes that it is "the Socialist Party's youth organization", but never explains the abbreviation; p. 92.
  12. The West German Social Democrats; p. 210.
  13. Of course, this is a good reason to read the electronic version of the book, since then you could do a keyword search. I have an old-fashioned paper copy.
  14. P. 210.

The Shelf of Shame

Title: The Secret

Author: Rhonda Byrne

Publisher: Atria Books

Date of Publication: 2006

Quote: "I never studied science or physics at school, and yet when I read complex books on quantum physics I understood them perfectly because I wanted to understand them. The study of quantum physics helped me to have a deeper understanding of The Secret, on an energetic level." (P. 156)

Review: This book is the latest inductee to The Fallacy Files Shelf of Shame, which is a collection of books based entirely on logical fallacies. Other volumes on the shelf: The Abortion Holocaust, Comet of Nostradamus: August, 2004―Impact!, and Hitler: Neither Vegetarian nor Animal Lover.

So, what is the big secret? Actually, even the book itself as much as admits that it's no secret, since the idea has been around for a long time. So that you don't have to waste your time reading the book to find out, here's the so-called secret:

The Universe obeys what's called the "Law of Attraction". No, it's not gravity, nor is it magnetism, though the book likes to use these forces as metaphors and blurs the distinction between them. Rather the "Law of Attraction" is the notion that good thoughts attract good things and bad thoughts attract bad things. So, if you want a ham sandwich, all that you have to do is think that you have a ham sandwich, and the Universe will so arrange itself that you will have a ham sandwich, without having to do anything tiresome like go to the fridge. In other words, the Law of Attraction is a pseudoscientific euphemism for wishful thinking.

The Law of Attraction is just a version of the old idea of "positive thinking". Think happy thoughts and happy things will happen to you; think sad thoughts and the Universe will give you something to be sad about. However, there's one catch to the Law: you have to be careful what you wish for because the Universe is an idiot. The Universe will grant your every whim, but it doesn't understand negation. So, if you wish: "I don't want basal cell carcinoma", the stupid Universe understands you to say: "I want basal cell carcinoma", and gives it to you. So, the proper way to engage in wishful thinking is never to use a negative. "I want clear, healthy skin", is what you should wish for.

Why doesn't the Universe understand negation? The Law of Attraction is that positive thoughts attract positive things and negative thoughts attract negative things, but the word "negative" is ambiguous because it can mean either of two things:

  1. Bad or harmful. Antonym: Positive
  2. Having to do with logical negation. Antonym: Affirmative

The Universe, according to Byrne, can't understand the difference between these two ideas, though I suspect that the real reason is that Byrne herself doesn't understand it. Of course, if it weren't for this claim, the Law of Attraction would be even more obviously false than it already is. Since there's no evidence given in the book to believe that the Universe is so stupid as not to understand negation, the only explanation I can think of for this strange claim is that it's an ad hoc hypothesis adopted to save the theory from refutation. After all, anyone who isn't delusional will look around them and immediately realize that the world does not automatically conform itself to our whims; that the Universe misunderstands our wishes and keeps sending us things that we don't want helps explain wars, famines, and pestilences.

Another odd thing about The Secret is how concerned it is with making money. If you could get things just by wishing for them, what would you need money for? Here's Byrne's startling explanation of the spiritual significance of wealth:

If you have been brought up to believe that being wealthy is not spiritual, then I highly recommend you read The Millionaires of the Bible Series by Catherine Ponder. In these glorious books you will discover that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus were not only prosperity teachers, but also millionaires themselves, with more affluent lifestyles than many present-day millionaires could conceive of. (P. 109)

I didn't make that up. I have my doubts about Jesus, but I have no doubt that Rhonda Byrne has managed to make herself a millionaire with The Secret.

What evidence does the book give for its dubious claims? Not much, but what there is falls into two categories:

  1. Appeals to authority: The book lists various great men of history who supposedly knew The Secret:
    The greatest teachers who have ever lived have told us that the law of attraction is the most powerful law in the Universe. … Great thinkers including Socrates, Plato, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Pythagoras, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Victor Hugo shared it in their writings and teachings. (P. 4)

    The only actual evidence given that any of these men wrote about or taught The Secret is a supposed Emerson quote: "The secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will be." (P. 183) What secret? Assuming that this is a genuine quote, how do we know that he was talking about The Secret? The book gives no citation, so it's virtually impossible to actually check whether Emerson ever said this. I did a Google book search, but couldn't find it. Since I'm unwilling to give Byrne the benefit of the doubt, I consider the quote bogus until proven genuine.

    I'm not an expert on Emerson, but I know quite a lot about Plato, and there's nothing in his philosophy that bears the remotest resemblance to The Secret. Maybe he knew of it but kept it secret! How, then, did Rhonda Byrne find that out?

    Other authorities appealed to are the 24 "co-authors" who are extensively quoted in the book and interviewed in the companion video. Why should we give them any credence? Among them is a chiropractor, a feng shui master, and a "life adventurer". A few claim to be philosophers, but I've never heard of any of them before, and none of them list any academic credentials in philosophy in the biographies in the back of the book. So, they appear to be "philosophers" only in the sense in which anyone can make that claim.

    One of the best known contributors to the book is John Gray, the author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Gray has a Ph.D. in psychology, but it's from the unaccredited Columbia Pacific University which was shut down by the state of California. So, he has a doctorate in psychology in about the same sense that the Scarecrow had a doctorate in Thinkology. He's also a signatory of the so-called "9/11 Truth Statement", which tells you something about both Gray and the statement.

    The main thing that these people have in common is that most of them have books, programs, or seminars that they want to sell you. Now that you know The Secret I suggest that you just wish for them rather than forking over any cash.

    So, the appeal to authority is fallacious because the so-called "authorities" appealed to are not experts on anything related to the subject matter, or anything at all in many cases.

  2. Quantum Quackery: The only other source of evidence for The Secret is the claim that the Law of Attraction is somehow based on quantum mechanics, and is therefore scientific. A couple of the contributors to the book are actual physicists. The best known one is John Hagelin, who got very few votes running three times for President of the United States on the Natural Law Party ticket, and currently is associated with the Maharishi University of Management. Both of these ventures are offshoots of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's transcendental meditation movement. In other words, Hagelin is an eccentric, to put it mildly.

    Quantum Mechanics (QM) is a highly mathematical theory which is extremely difficult to understand and, therefore, is a favorite of pseudoscientists. All that they have to do is claim that QM supports their snake oil, in that way making the snake oil sound scientific, and scarcely anyone in their audience will be able to tell otherwise.

    The Secret is simply the latest attempt to use QM to sell new age snake oil. I'm not a physicist, so I will simply let you consult the two articles on quantum quackery listed in the Sources below.

I've indulged in a lot of negative thoughts about The Secret, but I'll leave you with a couple of positive ones. It's beautifully designed and printed. Also, it's probably the most unintentionally funny book I've ever read.

Sources:

Reader Response: Lloyd Herring writes to raise three questions about this review, so I will address each one separately:

  1. I have some questions about the review of The Secret. Is there a fallacy during the discussion on the two views of negation? You said something to the effect that the real reason that the Universe didn't understand the two views of negation was that Byrne herself didn't understand the two views. This may be true, but I am wondering if this is an attack against Byrne herself, in other word, an ad hominem.

    It is an ad hominem―or, in this case, ad feminam―attack, but not a fallacious one. Not every criticism of a person commits a logical fallacy, only those that are logically irrelevant. In this case, Byrne's claim is obviously wrong to anyone who is logically literate. I'm not arguing against her silly views on the grounds that she is ignorant; rather, I am speculating that she is ignorant, because ignorance would explain why she adopts such silly views. Another explanation is that she does understand the difference between logical negation and "negativity", but thinks that her readers will not and wishes to mislead them. Ignorance and ignominy are the only explanations that I can think of for this absurd idea.

  2. I would also like to ask if there is a fallacy where you try to explain why the author thought the Universe is stupid. You say: "Since there's no evidence given in the book to believe that the Universe is so stupid as not to understand negation, the only explanation I can think of for this strange claim is that it's an ad hoc hypothesis adopted to save the theory from refutation." I am wondering if this is the fallacy of ignorance. I don't mean that you're ignorant. Instead, could this be a fallacy in the sense that just because you can't think of an explanation doesn't mean an explanation doesn't exist. However, I'm not sure if I am applying the fallacy correctly.

    It's possible that there is some reason for Byrne's claim that isn't given in the book or accompanying video, but the burden is on her to provide the evidence. In this case, given her failure to provide such evidence it's reasonable to conclude that she lacks any. This is a nonfallacious type of appeal to ignorance, such as the conclusion that there is no Loch Ness monster given the lack of good evidence for its existence. See the Exposure section of the entry for the appeal to ignorance for more explanation and examples.

  3. I am also wondering if there is a fallacy in the manner of your characterization of John Hagelin. You say Hagelin is associated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation fame through the Maharishi University of Management. You say that this shows that Hagelin is "an eccentric." Is this an example of guilt by association? Again, I am not sure if I am applying the fallacy correctly.

    This is another nonfallacious personal attack. In the book and video, Byrne trots out Hagelin as part of an appeal to authority. Since Hagelin is a physicist we are supposed to be convinced that there is something scientific about The Secret. As I explain in the Exposition section of the entry for the appeal to misleading authority, it's almost always possible to find eccentric scientists who take any position you like. For instance, there's an eccentric physicist who claims that the government is covering up a crashed flying saucer. An appeal to such authorities is worthless as evidence: it's not any different than going from doctor to doctor until you find one who will tell you what you want to hear. My point about Hagelin's eccentricity is that he represents a minority opinion among physicists, and that most would tell you that The Secret is pseudoscientific nonsense. Specifically, its references to QM are quantum quackery.

Please don't get me wrong about all these questions about the criticism of the Byrne book. I am not a fan of this book or its type. I just want to make sure and get the criticism right so supporters of this book have no ammunition for their responding criticisms.

Fair enough.

Reference

Title: The Book of the Fallacy

Subtitle: A Training Manual for Intellectual Subversives

Date: 1985

Author: Madsen Pirie

Review: This book is the closest thing to an encyclopedia of logical fallacies to have been published, and it is a shame that it has gone out of print. There are 83 fallacies arranged in alphabetical order, and a standard classification in the back. Pirie classifies fallacies into formal and informal, then further divides informal ones into linguistic (such as Equivocation), and relevance; fallacies of relevance are subdivided into classes of Omission (Straw Man, for instance), Intrusion (Ad Baculum, among others), and Presumption (Bifurcation, for example).

In the introduction, Pirie explains:

"I take a very broad view of fallacies. Any trick of logic or language which allows a statement or a claim to be passed off as something it is not, has an admission card to the enclosure reserved for fallacies."

For this reason, some of the "fallacies" are linguistic boobytraps ("Loaded Words", for instance), or non-rational techniques of persuasion, such as "Emotional Appeals".

This is a good reference book to keep on a handy shelf, but it also makes an entertaining read. The entries are wittily written and easily understood but, given its A to Z format, it's not the best introduction to fallacies for the beginner. For that, see With Good Reason, above. Unlike Engel's book, Pirie's examples are mostly cooked-up, but there is compensation in the fact that they are memorable and amusing.

Update (8/24/2017): As mentioned above, the original edition of this book is out of print, and it's both hard to find a copy and expensive when found. Thankfully, an expanded and undated edition is now available under the title: How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic (2nd edition, 2015).

Applications

History

Title:Historians' Fallacies

Subtitle: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought

Date: 1970

Author: David Hackett Fischer

Review: There are three reasons why this is a valuable book on fallacies:

  1. It is an extensive application of logic, especially logical fallacies, to an area of study, namely, history.
  2. It has the second-longest list of fallacies of any book I know about: 112 are listed in the index. This makes it useful as a reference book on fallacies. Because of its focus on historical reasoning, some of these fallacies are specific to history (which is one reason why there are so many!), but most can be generalized to other areas of thought.
  3. It is a treasure trove of real examples drawn, of course, from the works of historians.

Fischer, an historian rather than a logician, works with a broad conception of "fallacy" (which is another reason why there are so many!). As a result, some of the "fallacies" are more properly boobytraps or cognitive biases, but they are no less interesting or important for all that.

The book categorizes historical fallacies into eleven broad categories, of which the following are examples:

Of special interest are the two categories Fallacies of Causation and Fallacies of False Analogy, which give the best and most thorough treatments of mistakes in reasoning about causation, and by analogy, that I've ever read. In these two chapters, Fischer goes beyond application to make real contributions to the theory of fallacies.

In addition to being a rich reference source for fallacies and examples of them, Historians' Fallacies is intelligently written, and makes especially good reading for those interested in history. I hope that future historians and logicians will study this book carefully, with an eye to improving both fields.

Two Books on George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four

Orwell's novel had been intended, in its author's words, as a "warning"' rather than a prophecy. It was tempting to assume that the post-1989 collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites and the political reconfiguration of Eastern Europe had rendered the warning obsolete. … World literature is littered with the bones of eye-catching dystopias acclaimed as works of extraordinary prescience in their day that are now no more than period curios. … On the contrary, Nineteen Eighty-Four continued to embed itself in popular culture. …[W]orld sales in the last decade of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first are thought to have risen to 40 million copies. The novel became a staple of school curricula and examination syllabi. … The crucial factor, in all of this, was the novel's versatility, its continuing relevance to a world that Orwell had no way of foreseeing.1
When George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published in…1949,…one critic wondered how such a timely book could possibly exert the same power over generations to come. … [T]he fact that the novel speaks to us so loudly and clearly…is a terrible indictment of politicians and citizens alike. While it's still a warning, it has also become a reminder of all the painful lessons that the world appears to have unlearned since Orwell's lifetime, especially those concerning the fragility of truth in the face of power. I hesitate to say that Nineteen Eighty-Four is more relevant than ever, but it's a damn sight more relevant than it should be.2

Why were two books on George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four3 published in 2019? That year was the 70th anniversary of the novel's publication, but does that justify even one, let alone two such books?

Dorian Lynskey's The Ministry of Truth (MoT) was the first published4. Lynskey is a journalist who has written one previous book, about political protest songs5, which I suppose is some preparation for writing about a political novel.

MoT's subtitle is The Biography of George Orwell's 1984, but what is a biography of a book? Books don't live, except in a metaphorical sense, and biographies of people are usually written post mortem, but it's the fact that 1984 is still "alive" that justifies, if anything does, writing a whole book about it.

D. J. Taylor's On 1984 was published later the same year6. Taylor is a novelist, but also a biographer of Orwell7. Did he somehow get advance notice of Lynskey's book and rush his own into print, or vice versa? I don't know the answer to this question, leaving a mystery as to why such similar books were published the same year. Amusingly, Taylor's tome is subtitled A Biography of George Orwell's Masterpiece, perhaps because the biography had already been published.

From a literary point of view, 1984 is not the best novel ever written; it's not even the best novel written by Orwell, which is his previous one, Animal Farm (AF). Why has 1984 remained relevant whereas AF is in danger of disappearing? One reason is that AF is a satire of the Russian communist revolution of 1917, the subsequent establishment of the Soviet Union, and the rise of Joseph Stalin to its dictatorship. The novel is a parody history in the form of a talking animal story in which the animals rebel against their owner, the human farmer Jones, and establish a farm that they run themselves, hence, Animal Farm. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, AF lost much of its topical relevance, since the target of its satire no longer exists.

While AF is a subtle satire that can be read with pleasure by children who know nothing about the Soviet Union, 1984 is as subtle as a boot stamping on your face. Orwell seems to have almost literally written himself to death in his lengthy struggle to finish 1984, typing it himself on a manual typewriter while in bed with tuberculosis because he couldn't find a typist willing to make the long and arduous trip to the island where he had exiled himself.8. Many readers have speculated that his ill health contributed to the grim tone of the book, and even Orwell himself seems to have thought so9.

One thing you might hope to discover from reading either of these books is exactly what makes 1984 so relevant today. If so, you'll be disappointed. The mere fact that two such books were published in the same recent year is evidence that 1984 is still relevant, but neither author seems to have a clue why. Both spend a considerable time, in the latter parts of their books, itemizing the various popular songs, movies, and television shows inspired or influenced by 1984. I tend to enjoy such trivia, but I really didn't need to know that the obscure American rock band Spirit recorded a song called "1984" in 197010. These parts of both books sometimes read like those lists at the end of many a Wikipedia entry detailing every Simpsons reference or Doctor Who episode influenced by the subject of the article. For all I know, one or both of the authors did their research that way. Such popular culture references are further evidence, if any is needed, of the continuing influence of 1984, but none explain why that should be so. In both cases, you should feel free to skip the final chapters of the books―namely, Part 2 of MoT and Part 3 of Taylor―unless you're especially interested in such trivia.

What you can learn from both books is the historical, biographical, and literary background to the writing of 1984, all of which may help in understanding the book. Taylor, the biographer, does the more thorough job of depicting the ordeal that Orwell suffered in writing the book. In fact, the middle section of Taylor's three-part book, covering the years during which the novel was written, makes for rather depressing reading. Somewhat surprisingly, Lynskey's book is better on the literary background―including previous utopias and anti-utopias―that influenced Orwell.

Of course, neither of these two books is a substitute for reading 1984 itself. If you're sufficiently interested, I can recommend either or both of them as guides to the factual background of 1984. MoT is superior on the literary background and Taylor's book is more thorough on the biographical details of Orwell's life, especially during the writing of 1984. If you're in a hurry and want to read only one book, Taylor's book is shorter; if you want to read only one, but time is not so short, I recommend Lynskey's longer book.

As both Lynskey and Taylor pointed out in the quotes above, 1984 was a warning, not a prophecy. But what, exactly, was Orwell trying to warn us about? Here's a partial list:

Which of the above points does not have its contemporary manifestation? I don't need to belabor this point as anyone who pays attention to current events will know what I'm talking about, but I'll mention just a few less obvious examples.

In 1949, "telescreens" did not exist, but they do now. Here's Orwell's description of this technology:

The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.13

In 1984, it's unclear how telescreens came to be in everyone's home, but today people have voluntarily adopted them in the form of cameras and microphones on computers and cell phones, and many users take them along wherever they go. Just like the telescreen, such devices may be operated remotely, though unlike the telescreen they can be turned off, but how many people do so?14 Currently, the main concern seems to be that "hackers", rather than the government, will access people's devices for various nefarious purposes. However, we know that the current government is not above spying on private citizens15, and the technology is now in place to do so in a way that it was not in 1949.

Winston Smith is a censor in the novel; specifically, he rewrites past newspapers in order to remove any potentially embarrassing facts or references to unpersons. What Orwell didn't portray was this censorship arising bottom-up from amateurs, rather than top-down from professionals such as Smith16. Currently, an army of volunteer Winston Smiths is busy pressuring the government and so-called social media to censor those with whom they disagree17.

Both reviewed books were written just prior to the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, an event that has only increased the relevance of 1984. Government bureaucrats pressured "social" media to censor information under the Orwellian rubrics of "misinformation", "disinformation", and "malinformation". So-called "misinformation" was sometimes true18; true information was dismissed without evidence as "disinformation" from foreign governments19; and unwelcome truths were attacked as "malinformation"20.

The rights of speech, travel, association, and bodily integrity that we usually take for granted were taken away with shocking rapidity in 2020, and with little public protest. In fact, there was considerable public pressure on the government to take away rights and liberties in the name of safety, and continued resistance to their return. We have now regained much if not all of what was lost in 2020, but what will happen during the next great social panic?

This is not a prophecy; it's a warning. The technology of 1984 did not exist when Orwell wrote, but it does now. More importantly, the will to defend democracy against the encroachments of totalitarianism seems to be on the decline. These developments make the threat that Orwell was warning us about all the more relevant, since even the authors of books on 1984 seem unable to see it when it's right in front of their noses.

Notes:

  1. D. J. Taylor, On 1984: A Biography of George Orwell's Masterpiece (2019), pp. 329-331.
  2. Dorian Lynskey, The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984 (2019), pp. ix & xv. Paragraphing suppressed.
  3. This is the full title of the novel; hereinafter, I abbreviate it as "1984".
  4. MoT was released in May of 2019, see: "The Ministry of Truth", Pan Macmillan, accessed: 7/14/2023.
  5. Dorian Lynskey, 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs from Billie Holiday to Green Day (2011). I haven't read it.
  6. On 1984 appeared in October of 2019; see: "On Nineteen Eighty-Four", Abrams Books, accessed: 7/14/2023.
  7. D. J. Taylor, Orwell: The Life (2003). I haven't read it. There appears to be a new edition published earlier this year, retitled: "Orwell: The New Life", Pegasus Books, accessed: 7/14/2023.
  8. See: MoT, p. 166 and Taylor's lengthy, grueling account in On 1984, part 2.
  9. For instance, Orwell wrote to his publisher:
    I am not pleased with the book [1984] but I am not absolutely dissatisfied. … I think it is a good idea but the execution would have been better if I had not written it under the influence of T. B. [tuberculosis]"

    "Letter to F. J. Warburg", 10/22/1948, from In Front of Your Nose, 1945-1950: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 4 (1971), p. 507.

  10. MoT, p. 215 & Taylor, p. 153. Spirit is primarily remembered today for having supposedly been ripped off by Led Zeppelin; see: Sophia Waterfield, "'Taurus' by Spirit vs. 'Stairway to Heaven': Listen to Both Songs After Led Zeppelin Wins Copyright Case", Newsweek, 3/10/2020.
  11. 1984, Appendix.
  12. 1984, chapter 8.
  13. 1984, chapter 1.
  14. David Cook, "Hackers can access your mobile and laptop cameras and record you–cover them up now", The Conversation, 4/16/2020.
  15. For just one recent example, see: Zeba Siddiqui, "FBI misused intelligence database in 278,000 searches, court says", Reuters, 5/19/2023.
  16. In his once-lost preface to Animal Farm, Orwell does discuss the way in which censorship can come from pressure groups outside of government; see: Freedom of the Press, 5/31/2023.
  17. Lee Jussim, "How Social Norms Create a Culture of Censorship", Psychology Today, 3/25/2021.
  18. F. D. Flam, "Facebook, YouTube Erred in Censoring Covid-19 ‘Misinformation’", Bloomberg, 7/7/2021.
  19. Glenn Kessler, "The Hunter Biden laptop and claims of ‘Russian disinfo’", The Washington Post, 2/13/2023.
  20. Jacob Sullum, "Malinformation: Censors’ excuse to suppress ‘inconvenient truths’", New York Post, 3/24/2023.

Conspiracy Theories

Title: Suspicious Minds

Subtitle: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories

Author: Rob Brotherton

Date: 2015

Quote: "A conspiracy theory, according to…literal-minded definitions, is essentially just a theory about a conspiracy. But when people call something a conspiracy theory, they're usually not talking about just any old conspiracy. Conspiracies, after all, are a dime a dozen. From outlaws plotting bank heists to corporate executives planning to mislead their customers, and from drug smuggling and bribery to coups, kidnappings, assassinations, and terrorist attacks, plenty of things [that] happen in the world are the result of conspiracy between interested parties or secret plots by powerful conspirators. There's nothing especially noteworthy about theorizing the existence of conspiracies like these. Our definition ought to reflect how people actually use the term, and in regular conversation not every theory about a conspiracy qualifies as a conspiracy theory. The term is more than the sum of its parts." (P. 62)

Review: I've had some criticisms of the subtitle of psychologist Rob Brotherton's new book, as well as of an article that Brotherton wrote for the Los Angeles Times―see the Resources, below. My guess is that the subtitle was imposed by its publisher as there is little in the book that supports it, but I stand by my criticism of both it and the newspaper article. Nonetheless, despite my previous criticisms, I have good news about this book: it's excellent!

If you know someone who believes "weird things"―and I suspect that most of us these days do know at least one conspiracy theorist (CTist)―and you wonder what makes them tick, then this book may help you understand. Why is it that an otherwise sane, intelligent person believes [insert your favorite conspiracy theory (CT) here]? Of course, I'm assuming that you don't also believe that CT, for if you did you wouldn't be puzzled.

Even if you're a conspiracist yourself, you can always find a CT so far out there that you wonder how anyone could take it seriously. So, if you do believe some CT, a useful thought experiment is to put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't: that person is thinking about you in the same way you think about your crazy CTist friend. So, you believe that JFK was assassinated by the CIA, but those 9/11 CTists are kooks. Or, maybe you're a 9/11 "kook" yourself, but those who claim that the moon landings were faked are lunatics.

My point here is not the bogus one that we're all CTists, but that even if you are a CTist about some particular CT, you are very likely to find yourself in the same position as the rest of us. How is it that those other CTists can believe that crazy stuff? In contrast, if you believe every CT out there, then this book isn't for you. In fact, you might want to get some therapy―just a suggestion.

Conspiracy thinking is a type of fallacious thinking, and fallacious thinking is normal human thinking. It's normal for people to think poorly much of time and in many situations, especially when nothing of immediate serious consequence is at stake, and because it's normal none of us is immune. However, that doesn't mean that some of us do not think better than others, or that we can't all learn to think better. Learning about conspiracy thinking―what it is, how to recognize it, and how to resist being seduced by it―is one way to improve your thinking.

This book is not a history of CTs―though we do learn a little in the first chapter―nor is it a book aimed at debunking specific CTs―though a bit of debunking is done in passing. In the first chapter, we discover that CTs have always been with us, though perhaps not to the degree that they are today. If one is tempted to believe that CTs are just harmless entertainment, or all CTists delightful eccentrics, the second chapter explains that there can be great harm in conspiricist thinking. In particular, Nazism was a CT based on a plagiarized forgery. Of course, most CTs are not as destructive as Nazism, but that's about like saying that most diseases are not as bad as AIDS.

I've argued previously―see the Resource under "Confirmation Bias", below―that CTs are not genuine theories since they lack one necessary characteristic of theories, namely, falsifiability. This is one reason why arguing with CTists can be such a frustrating experience, as Brotherton explains:

…[A]ttempting to refute a conspiracy theory is like nailing jelly to a wall. …[T]he theory is always a work in progress, able to dodge refutation by inventing new twists and turns. Each debunking can be construed as disinformation designed to throw truth seekers off the scent, while the conspiracy theorists' continued failure to blow the lid off the conspiracy merely testifies to the power of their enemy (and the gullibility of the masses). Conspiracy theories aren't just immune to refutation―they thrive on it. If it doesn't look like a conspiracy, it was definitely a conspiracy. Evidence against the conspiracy theory becomes evidence of conspiracy. Heads I win, tails you lose. (P. 77)

Since Brotherton is a psychologist, the aim of the book is to explain what is known about the psychology of conspiracist thinking. Regular readers of The Fallacy Files should already be familiar with many of the psychological phenomena that play a role in CTs:

I could nitpick Suspicious Minds on a few minor points, but I don't want to; instead, I want to encourage you to read it. I do think the author tends to err on the side of tolerance of CTs, despite discussing the wacky theories of David Icke, who appears to have adopted his beliefs from the old science fiction television miniseries V. If Icke's theories aren't "crazy", then I'm a shape-shifting reptile from another dimension. However, no book is perfect. So, I highly recommend Suspicious Minds to anyone puzzled by the phenomenon of conspiracy theories, and nowadays that should be just about everyone.

Resources:

Fun with Fallacies

Title: The Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations (LIAR)

Author: Robert Thornton

Date: 1988

Review: Logical error has serious consequences, but it is also a laughing matter. Many logical fallacies have been the basis of jokes, but the biggest laughs seem to come from the fallacies of ambiguity. There is something about double entendres that we find funny, and tapping into this vein of comedy is the Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations.

The context of this book was a spate of litigation against writers of unfavorable letters of recommendation. You may be called upon to write letters of recommendation for people of whom you disapprove. If you turn them down, they may be angry with you; and if they don't get the job, due to the lack of your letter, you may have to continue working with them. If you write an honestly negative recommendation, you risk a lawsuit. Whereas, if you write a dishonestly positive one, you will have a lie on your conscience.

LIAR shows how to write an ambiguous letter which has two interpretations:

  1. Favorable enough to satisfy the subject of the recommendation.
  2. Unfavorable, for the eyes of the prospective employer who knows how to read such double-speaking recommendations.

I don't know whether such lawsuits are still a problem, and I wouldn't recommend LIAR for its stated use even if they were. In fact, I think that this little book's purported purpose is offered with tongue in cheek. Instead of a cynical self-help book for weasels, it's a satirical collection of backhanded insults. Here are some catty equivocations:

And here are a few malicious amphibolies:

What I found most impressive about Thornton's book is his creativity in inventing new forms of ambiguity. For instance, there is a section devoted to ambiguous punctuation:

There is also a section on giving ambiguous oral recommendations using homophones—words that are spelled differently, but sound the same—such as "right" and "write". For instance, the following sentence in a letter would be unambiguous, but what about in a telephone recommendation?

"The breadth of the man is overwhelming and quite obvious to those working closely with him." (P. 102)

Politicians and propagandists should stay away from this little book, which could be dangerous in the hands of someone with no sense of humor.

Revised: 7/15/2023, 1/5/2024