Download or read book Weaponized Lies written by Daniel J. Levitin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previously Published as A Field Guide to Lies We’re surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we need to know and share now. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories. This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like “fringe theories,” “extreme views,” “alt truth,” and even “fake news” can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.
Download or read book A Field Guide to Lies written by Daniel J. Levitin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The New York Times bestselling author of THE ORGANIZED MIND and THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON MUSIC, a primer to the critical thinking that is more necessary now than ever. We are bombarded with more information each day than our brains can process—especially in election season. It's raining bad data, half-truths, and even outright lies. New York Times bestselling author Daniel J. Levitin shows how to recognize misleading announcements, statistics, graphs, and written reports revealing the ways lying weasels can use them. It's becoming harder to separate the wheat from the digital chaff. How do we distinguish misinformation, pseudo-facts, distortions, and outright lies from reliable information? Levitin groups his field guide into two categories—statistical infomation and faulty arguments—ultimately showing how science is the bedrock of critical thinking. Infoliteracy means understanding that there are hierarchies of source quality and bias that variously distort our information feeds via every media channel, including social media. We may expect newspapers, bloggers, the government, and Wikipedia to be factually and logically correct, but they so often aren't. We need to think critically about the words and numbers we encounter if we want to be successful at work, at play, and in making the most of our lives. This means checking the plausibility and reasoning—not passively accepting information, repeating it, and making decisions based on it. Readers learn to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. Levitin's charming, entertaining, accessible guide can help anyone wake up to a whole lot of things that aren't so. And catch some lying weasels in their tracks!
Download or read book Weaponized Lies Deluxe written by Daniel J. Levitin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This deluxe eBook (previously published as A Field Guide to Lies Deluxe) features six videos from Daniel Levitin, with more examples, anecdotes, and added visual guides. We’re surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we need to know and share now. Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories. This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like "fringe theories," "extreme views," "alt truth," and even "fake news" can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.
Download or read book Teaching What Really Happened written by James W. Loewen and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2018-09-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Should be in the hands of every history teacher in the country.”— Howard Zinn James Loewen has revised Teaching What Really Happened, the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled "Truth" that addresses how traditional and social media can distort current events and the historical record. Helping students understand what really happened in the past will empower them to use history as a tool to argue for better policies in the present. Our society needs engaged citizens now more than ever, and this book offers teachers concrete ideas for getting students excited about history while also teaching them to read critically. It will specifically help teachers and students tackle important content areas, including Eurocentrism, the American Indian experience, and slavery. Book Features: An up-to-date assessment of the potential and pitfalls of U.S. and world history education. Information to help teachers expect, and get, good performance from students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Strategies for incorporating project-oriented self-learning, having students conduct online historical research, and teaching historiography. Ideas from teachers across the country who are empowering students by teaching what really happened. Specific chapters dedicated to five content topics usually taught poorly in today’s schools.
Download or read book Weaponized Words written by Kurt Braddock and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-16 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover theories of persuasion that show how terrorist messages promote radicalization and how counter-messages fight terrorist propaganda.
Download or read book Likewar written by Peter Warren Singer and published by Eamon Dolan Books. This book was released on 2018 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social media has been weaponized, as state hackers and rogue terrorists have seized upon Twitter and Facebook to create chaos and destruction. This urgent report is required reading, from defense experts P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking.
Download or read book Successful Aging written by Daniel J. Levitin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT TOP 10 BESTSELLER • New York Times • USA Today • Washington Post • LA Times “Debunks the idea that aging inevitably brings infirmity and unhappiness and instead offers a trove of practical, evidence-based guidance for living longer and better.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of When and Drive SUCCESSFUL AGING delivers powerful insights: • Debunking the myth that memory always declines with age • Confirming that "health span"—not "life span"—is what matters • Proving that sixty-plus years is a unique and newly recognized developmental stage • Recommending that people look forward to joy, as reminiscing doesn't promote health Levitin looks at the science behind what we all can learn from those who age joyously, as well as how to adapt our culture to take full advantage of older people's wisdom and experience. Throughout his exploration of what aging really means, using research from developmental neuroscience and the psychology of individual differences, Levitin reveals resilience strategies and practical, cognitive enhancing tricks everyone should do as they age. Successful Aging inspires a powerful new approach to how readers think about our final decades, and it will revolutionize the way we plan for old age as individuals, family members, and citizens within a society where the average life expectancy continues to rise.
Download or read book Critical Thinking Science and Pseudoscience written by Caleb W. Lack, PhD and published by Springer Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique text for undergraduate courses teaches students to apply critical thinking skills across all academic disciplines by examining popular pseudoscientific claims through a multidisciplinary lens. Rather than merely focusing on critical thinking grounded in philosophy and psychology, the text incorporates the perspectives of biology, physics, medicine, and other disciplines to reinforce different categories of rational explanation. The book is also distinguished by its respectful approach to individuals whose ideas are, according to the authors, deeply flawed. Accessible and engaging, it describes what critical thinking is, why it is important, and how to learn and apply skillsóusing scientific methods--that promote it. The text also examines why critical thinking can be difficult to engage in and explores the psychological and social reasons why people are drawn to and find credence in extraordinary claims. From alien abductions and psychic phenomena to strange creatures and unsupported alternative medical treatments, the text uses examples from a wide range of pseudoscience fields and brings evidence from diverse disciplines to critically examine these erroneous claims. Particularly timely is the text's examination of how, using the narrative of today's "culture wars," religion and culture impact science. The authors focus on how the human brain, rife with natural biases, does not process information in a rational fashion, and the social factors that prevent individuals from gaining an unbiased, critical perspective on information. Authored by a psychologist and a philosopher who have extensive experience teaching and writing on critical thinking and skeptical inquiry, this work will help students to strengthen their skills in reasoning and debate, become intelligent consumers of research, and make well-informed choices as citizens. Key Features: Addresses the foundations of critical thinking and how to apply it through the popular activity of examining pseudoscience Explains why humans are vulnerable to pseudoscientific claims and how critical thinking can overcome fallacies and biases Reinforces critical thinking through multidisciplinary analyses of pseudoscience Examines how religion and culture impact science Enlightens using an engaging, entertaining approach Written by experienced and innovative scholar/educators well known in the skeptic community Features teaching resources including an Instructor's Guide and Powepoint slides
Download or read book The World in Six Songs written by Daniel J. Levitin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2008-08-19 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the New York Times bestseller This Is Your Brain on Music reveals music’s role in the evolution of human culture in this thought-provoking book that “will leave you awestruck” (The New York Times). Daniel J. Levitin's astounding debut bestseller, This Is Your Brain on Music, enthralled and delighted readers as it transformed our understanding of how music gets in our heads and stays there. Now in his second New York Times bestseller, his genius for combining science and art reveals how music shaped humanity across cultures and throughout history. Here he identifies six fundamental song functions or types—friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love—then shows how each in its own way has enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. He shows, in effect, how these “six songs” work in our brains to preserve the emotional history of our lives and species. Dr. Levitin combines cutting-edge scientific research from his music cognition lab at McGill University and work in an array of related fields; his own sometimes hilarious experiences in the music business; and illuminating interviews with musicians such as Sting and David Byrne, as well as conductors, anthropologists, and evolutionary biologists. The World in Six Songs is, ultimately, a revolution in our understanding of how human nature evolved—right up to the iPod.
Download or read book The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Interdependence written by Daniel W. Drezner and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2021-03-02 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " How globalized information networks can be used for strategic advantage Until recently, globalization was viewed, on balance, as an inherently good thing that would benefit people and societies nearly everywhere.Now there is growing concern that some countries will use their position in globalized networks to gain undue influence over other societies through their dominance of information and financial networks, a concept known as “weaponized interdependence.” In exploring the conditions under which China, Russia, and the United States might be expected to weaponize control of information and manipulate the global economy, the contributors to this volume challenge scholars and practitioners to think differently about foreign economic policy, national security, and statecraft for the twenty-first century. The book addresses such questions as: What areas of the global economy are most vulnerable to unilateral control of informationand financial networks? How sustainable is the use of weaponized interdependence? What are the possible responses from targeted actors? And how sustainable is the open global economy if weaponized interdependence becomes a default tool for managing international relations? "
Download or read book Post Truth written by Lee McIntyre and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-02-16 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we arrived in a post-truth era, when “alternative facts” replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence. Are we living in a post-truth world, where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into “information silos.” What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples—claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote—and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism—specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth—in its attacks on science and facts. McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.
Download or read book Lies My Gov t Told Me written by Robert W. Malone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A WALL STREET JOURNALNATIONAL BESTSELLER *AS SEEN ON TUCKER CARLSON TODAY AND THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE* A guide for the times—breaking down the lies about COVID-19 and shedding light on why we came to believe them. When he invented the original mRNA vaccine technology as a medical and graduate student in the late 1980s, Robert Malone could not have imagined that he would become a leader in a movement to expose the dangers of mRNA vaccines that billions of people have received—too often without being informed of the risks. For voicing opposition to the “mainstream” narrative, Dr. Robert Malone was censored by Big Tech and vilified by the media. But he continues to speak out and alert the world to the web of lies that we have all experienced. From vaccine safety and effectiveness to early treatments like ivermectin, to lockdowns, masks, and more, Dr. Malone is the signature dissident voice telling the other side of the story about COVID, the role of corporate media, censorship, propaganda, and the brave new world of transhumanism promoted by the World Economic Forum and its acolytes. What effect did the COVID policies have on lives, livelihoods, and democracies? How is it possible that the lies spread by governments would persist, and that our institutions would fail to correct them? Lies My Gov’t Told Me takes a hard look at these questions and illustrates how data, information, and psychology have been distorted during the pandemic. Governments intentionally weaponized fear to mold behavior. The media smeared anyone who objected to the narrative. And Big Pharma—aligned with larger globalist interests exemplified by the likes of Bill Gates and the World Economic Forum—had captured the agencies that are supposed to regulate it long before the pandemic began. Dr. Malone explores these perverse connections between Pharma, government, and media, and tells us what can be done about it. With contributed chapters from other leading thinkers, such as Dr. Paul Marik and Professor Mattias Desmet, and drawing upon history, psychology, and economics, Lies My Gov’t Told Me looks at COVID from numerous angles. Never satisfied with a simple answer or easy solution, Dr. Malone proposes multiple action plans for a better future. Dr. Malone calls on each of us to find our own solutions, our own ways to resist the control of fascist, corporatist, and totalitarian overlords. If we are to step out of the darkness—toward a world that defends the principles of the Constitution, upholds individual rights, and honors free speech—we all must play a part in the transition.
Download or read book Nellie Norton written by Ebenezer W. Warren and published by . This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nellie Norton - or, Southern slavery and the Bible is an unchanged, high-quality reprint of the original edition of 1864. Hansebooks is editor of the literature on different topic areas such as research and science, travel and expeditions, cooking and nutrition, medicine, and other genres. As a publisher we focus on the preservation of historical literature. Many works of historical writers and scientists are available today as antiques only. Hansebooks newly publishes these books and contributes to the preservation of literature which has become rare and historical knowledge for the future.
Download or read book Airborne written by Matt Margolis and published by Bombardier Books. This book was released on 2020-07-08 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting with the Russian collusion hoax, the media never relented in their attempts to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency. When the bogus impeachment ended with Trump’s acquittal, they needed a new “scandal” to hang over his head. After largely ignoring the coronavirus outbreak, the media made it their Hail Mary attempt to sabotage President Trump. They claimed Trump’s travel ban with China was racist, xenophobic, and unnecessary—then later blamed him for not implementing it sooner. They falsely claimed Trump called the coronavirus a hoax. They concocted a phony timeline to “prove” his response to the pandemic was slow. They deceptively edited Trump's words to create an impression that he was crazy or stupid. They even blamed him for the death of a man whose wife gave him fish tank cleaner. In Airborne: How The Liberal Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, Matt Margolis exposes and debunks these lies and fake narratives reported by the media in their desperate attempt to thwart Trump’s reelection.
Download or read book The Economic Weapon written by Nicholas Mulder and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing the history of economic sanctions from the blockades of World War I to the policing of colonial empires and the interwar confrontation with fascism, Nicholas Mulder combines political, economic, legal, and military history to reveal how a coercive wartime tool was adopted as an instrument of peacekeeping by the League of Nations.This timely study casts an overdue light on why sanctions are widely considered a form of war, and why their unintended consequences are so tremendous.
Download or read book Genocidal Crimes written by Alex Alvarez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-04 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Genocidal Crimes draws upon the extensive criminological literature on criminality and violence to provide a comprehensive and contemporary analysis of genocide. Written in an accessible style, this book differs from much of the writing on genocide in that it explicitly relies on criminological theory and research to help provide new insight into the nature and functioning of genocide.
Download or read book But What If We re Wrong written by Chuck Klosterman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Full of intelligence and insights, as the author gleefully turns ideas upside down to better understand them. . . Replete with lots of nifty, whimsical footnotes, this clever, speculative book challenges our beliefs with jocularity and perspicacity.” —Kirkus (starred review) “Klosterman’s trademark humor and unique curiosity propel the reader through the book. He remains one of the most insightful critics of pop culture writing today and this is his most thought-provoking and memorable book yet.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) The tremendously well-received New York Times bestseller by cultural critic Chuck Klosterman, exploring the possibility that our currently held beliefs and assumptions about the world will eventually be proven wrong—now in paperback. But What If We're Wrong? is a book of original, reported, interconnected pieces, which speculate on the likelihood that many universally accepted, deeply ingrained cultural and scientific beliefs will someday seem absurd. Covering a spectrum of objective and subjective topics, the book attempts to visualize present-day society the way it will be viewed in a distant future. Klosterman cites original interviews with a wide variety of thinkers and experts—including George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Alex Ross, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Dan Carlin, Nick Bostrom, and Richard Linklater. Klosterman asks straightforward questions that are profound in their simplicity, and the answers he explores and integrates with his own analysis generate the most thought-provoking and propulsive book of his career.
