An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments

Ali Almossawi (illus. Alejandro Giraldo)

'A wonderfully digestible summary of the pitfalls and techniques of argumentation. I can't think of a better way to be taught or reintroduced to these fundamental notions of logical discourse. A delightful little book.'

Aaron Koblin, Creative Director of the Data Arts team at Google

'Seriously, An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments should be on every school curriculum. Twitter will be a more civil place.'

Kevin Tang, BuzzFeed

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'I love this illustrated book of bad arguments. A flawless compendium of flaws.'

Prof. Alice Roberts, anatomist, presenter of the BBC's 'The Incredible Human Journey'

Have you read (or stumbled into) one too many irrational online debates? Ali Almossawi certainly had, so he wrote An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments! This handy guide is here to bring the internet age a much needed dose of old-school logic (really old-school, a la Aristotle).

Here are cogent explanations of the straw man fallacy, the slippery slope argument, the ad hominem attack, and other common attempts at reasoning that fall short — plus a beautifully drawn menagerie of animals who (adorably) commit every logical faux pas. Rabbit thinks a strange light in the sky must be a UFO because no one can prove otherwise (the appeal to ignorance). And Lion doesn’t believe that gas emissions harm the planet because, if that were true, he wouldn’t like the result (the argument from consequences).

Once you learn to recognise these abuses of reason, they start to crop up everywhere from parliamentary debate to YouTube comments — which makes this geek-chic book a must for anyone in the habit of holding opinions. It’s the antidote to fuzzy thinking, with furry animals!

Aaron Koblin, Creative Director of the Data Arts team at Google

'Seriously, An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments should be on every school curriculum. Twitter will be a more civil place.'

Kevin Tang, BuzzFeed

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Details

Format:Hardback

Size: 178mm × 203mm

Extent:64pp

ISBN (13):9781922247810

RRP:£14.99

Pub date:4 Dec 2014

Rights Held: UK & Commonwealth

High-res cover:Download Image

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AUTHOR

Ali Almossawi

Ali Almossawi is an alumnus of MIT’s engineering systems division and Carnegie Mellon’s school of computer science. His books include An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments, An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language, and Bad Choices. His writing has appeared in publications such as Wired. He works and lives in San Francisco.

ILLUSTRATOR

Alejandro Giraldo

Alejandro Giraldo holds a degree in graphic design from UPB Medellín and a master’s in art direction from ELISAVA (the Barcelona School of Design and Engineering). He runs the clothing company Velmost and works as a freelance illustrator. He lives in Medellín, Colombia.

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