Good Thinking

Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World

By: David Robert Grimes

Narrated by: David Robert Grimes

Good Thinking is our best defense against anti-vaccine paranoia, climate denial, and other dire threats of today.

In our ever-more-polarized society, there's at least one thing we still agree on: The world is overrun with misinformation, faulty logic, and the gullible followers who buy into it all. Of course, we're not among them - are we?

Scientist David Robert Grimes is on a mission to expose the logical fallacies and cognitive biases that drive our discourse on a dizzying array of topics - from vaccination to abortion, 9/11 conspiracy theories to dictatorial doublespeak, astrology to alternative medicine, and wrongful convictions to racism. But his purpose in Good Thinking isn't to shame or place blame. Rather, it's to interrogate our own assumptions - to develop our eye for the glimmer of truth in a vast sea of dubious sources - in short, to think critically.

Grimes' expert takedown of irrationality is required for anyone wondering why bad thinking persists and how we can defeat it. Ultimately, no one changes anyone else's mind; we can only change our own - and give others the tools to do the same.

©2019 David Robert Grimes (P)2021 Tantor

An essential tool

In a world of fake news and cancel culture it is important to have the weapon of critical thinking. Being able not only to think and question but also make a case for our beliefs and bring meaningful evidence

flawed thinking at times.

I loved about 70% of the book. but gave 3 stars because of his disdain and prejudice against conservatives and people of faith. His hatred of Donald Trump and love for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton without facts and evidence was disappointing. He is obviously a liberal who feels rather than thinks politically. His statements that Evolution and man caused climate change are settled science are concerning since there is plenty of room for discussion. Focus on facts and evidence instead of politics and your book will be better received.

Problems without solutions

I was glad to read this book to see what the author had to say about solving ignorance... Virtually nothing. He is intelligent, but I find little value without solutions.

Incredible

I read a lot about critical thinking and logical fallacies, so I didn’t expect to learn a lot from this book. Oh boy was I wrong! It goes straight to the top of my favorite books of all time.

Essential reading for every adult

Having had a college statistics course long ago, I was familiar with some of the content. I was reminded of the required reading in the course of the book “How to Lie with Statistics.” And, yes, it is surprisingly easy to lie with statics. Politicians and everyone in marketing knows well how to do that.
This book goes beyond that though in numerous ways, including applying it to the internet age and social media.
Though this wasn’t a fun book for me, it was highly informative and left me better able to protect myself and my family from misinformation.
It’s okay to skip ahead a few chapters, though it’s all worth the time.
If you’re confused about which foods are healthy, this book will help you know what to turn to for best evidence, and I don’t mean which news sources or “experts.”

A must-read

A very important exploration of our vulnerability to misinformation. I would make a slight correction that CBD has indeed gotten approval for a specific type of epilepsy

Very much needed in the era of social media

I found it to be an engaging and humorous exploration of pseudoscience and misinformation. I was initially expecting a book focused solely on STEM, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that many stories also delve into historical moments unrelated to STEM. The book offers practical advice on how to critically evaluate information, which is incredibly valuable in today's info-saturated world. It encourages you to adopt a skeptical mindset and question what they hear and read. I think it's a great starting point for anyone who wants to learn how to think critically but isn't sure where to begin. It really makes you question the things you see in the media and what people usually suggest to try to make your life better but at the end, you just waste money on. However, it can be dismissive of certain beliefs, especially if you're not used to scientific thinking. So, I’d suggest reading it with an open mind and being ready to challenge some of your long-held assumptions.

Flawed Logic

Mr Grimes explains how flawed logic can be used to develop incorrect conclusions then precedes to use same logic to refute numerous positions. I found this book verbose with little practical education though many of the stories were informative.

Very prejudiced…

The author takes an objective topic and inserts his subjective opinions as the examples creating a poor book. Some of his subjective-ness has already been proved disastrously wrong.