A statistically challenging master class in the art of bullshit detection.
Part playful polemic and part serious scientific treatise on a plague that “pollutes our world by misleading people about specific issues and…undermines our ability to trust information in general.”
Beginning with a provocative opening line—“The world is awash with bullshit, and we’re drowning in it”—Bergstrom and West deliver a sturdy guide to helping readers avoid a lifetime of being bamboozled by misinformation. As they note, much of what seems factual and statistically sound is often nothing but bullshit. The authors differentiate between what they refer to as “old school bullshit,” which is mostly rhetorical and language-based, and “new school bullshit,” which refers to the cagey manipulation of mathematics and scientific data to create the illusion of sophistication and factual accuracy. The authors focus mostly on the latter, methodically examining the many characters well-versed in the art of bullshitting, whether they are scientific or medical researchers, advertisers, or other professional manipulators desperate to pull the wool over the public’s eyes in pursuit of profit and power. Bergstrom and West direct our attention to the technocrats and social media giants who facilitate mass disinformation and preside over machine-learning algorithms that are often faulty. The authors occasionally go too heavy on the statistical analysis, which can get long-winded and make readers pine for the more attitude-driven polemical salvos aimed at bullshitters earlier in the book. Nonetheless, the authors make plenty of crucial and original points, especially in outing the current trend toward conflating association with causality, not to mention exposing how numbers and percentages are routinely manipulated in order to turn us all into mindless consumers. However abstruse they might get on any given page, Bergstrom and West give you the tools needed to make yourself bullshit-proof—a skill that will prove to be ever more important as big data continues to proliferate.
A statistically challenging master class in the art of bullshit detection.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-50918-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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