Waterstones Bath - 6 November

Talking about The Duck That Won the Lottery: and 99 Other Bad Arguments at 7pm. Full details here.

Misinforming the nation

"Bashing pseudo-science, fundamentalist religion and new age mumbo-jumbo has become a popular intellectual sport in recent years. But worthwhile as all these attacks are, they risk diverting attention from the numerous forms of irrationality that are closer to home."

Post at Comment is Free.

New podcast available

Podularity have just posted a new interview with me, by George Miller, about my new book on bad arguments. You can listen to it here.

Can we untangle this web of deceit?

"I'm hopeful that the information overload might be provoking a long-overdue upgrading of the general population's capacity to distinguish for itself between good and bad arguments. Rather than blaming the internet, we need to attribute responsibility to the right place, which is with people who dish out the falsehoods in the first place, and ourselves for swallowing them too easily."

This week's Herald column.

How to be sure that your beliefs are not just a load of bull

In his film, Al Gore quoted Upton Sinclair: "You can't make somebody understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it." That's true, but we need to remember people who work for lobby groups and charities have salaries, too, and that wages are not the only things we value. A deeper, broader version of Sinclair's maxim would be, "You can't make somebody understand something if their existing world view depends upon them not understanding it."

Latest column in The Herald.

Duck judged to be tasty

"Every society needs its guardian of good sense: Baggini is ours."

I'm blushing. Review of The Duck in the FT.
Available now from Amazon.

Duck now on the menu

My new book, The Duck that Won the Lottery And 99 Other Bad Arguments has just been published by Granta. It's about the ways in which people argue badly, but often persuasively. One example is the "it sends the wrong message" objection, which I also mention in my column for The Herald today. Like most of the bad arguments, they crop up time and again, which is why it's no surprise then when writing something topical this week, I overlap with the book.
The book is of course available from Amazon or your friendly local book store.

badarguments.com

badarguments.com is the (presently sub-) website for The Duck the Won the Lottery and 99 Other Bad Arguments, published this autumn by Granta. The book examines 100 ways in which people argue or reason badly, but often persuasively. The book has its roots in a series I wrote for the butterfliesandwheels.com website called Bad Moves. You can read some of these entries by clicking on the links below.
As publication of the book nears, there will be more on bad arguments published here. Subscribe to keep informed.

Bad moves
It's a free country
Partial defence = support
Contorting to balance
Mood music
The gambler's fallacy