Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl T. Bergstrom

Nov 19, 2020 Trevor rated it it was amazing

Shelves: maths, science, social-theory

I think you need to read this book. It’s not urgent, anytime over the next couple of weeks will do fine. I was thinking while I was reading this of Bad Science (which you should also read, not least since the jokes are much better), but the advantage of this book is that it is written by people who are (how do I put this in a way so as not to hurt their feelings?) relatively dull. Dull, it’s true, but systematic (or do I repeat myself?) And so, they present the seemingly endless ways we can have I think you need to read this book. It’s not urgent, anytime over the next couple of weeks will do fine. I was thinking while I was reading this of Bad Science (which you should also read, not least since the jokes are much better), but the advantage of this book is that it is written by people who are (how do I put this in a way so as not to hurt their feelings?) relatively dull. Dull, it’s true, but systematic (or do I repeat myself?) And so, they present the seemingly endless ways we can have bullshit served up to us in ways that feel very comprehensive. And then they go about teaching us all the ways we can train ourselves to notice. (You know, “Hang on – this smells like bullshit…”)

I want to start by assuring you this isn’t the book I thought it was going to be. When I started reading it, I was expecting it to suddenly become something a little like: “One of the major problems people face in statistical analysis is in confusing the simple binomial with the chi-square test” (at this point I was expecting the book to then take a quick digression of three or so pages of impenetrable differential equations). Then I was expecting the authors to say “As you can see, and this as should be obvious to even the most boneheaded layperson, you simply can’t perform a t-test on a non-normally distributed key variable integrated Howard’s Disappointment ratio, not unless the effect size is under 0.4 and the products of the remainders have been divided by log e….”

I was so afraid that this book would turn into one of those books that I literally flicked through the pages before buying it with an expression on my face as if, at any moment, one of those pages would set off the mathematical equivalent of a landmine.

This never happened. In fact, the book expects you to know nothing of statistics at all. Better still, it leaves you with almost as much knowledge of statistics as you started with. If you are after a ‘how to statistics while winning friends and influencing people’ book, this isn’t it. Rather, this book explains that the black boxes of statistical analysis can remain mostly obscure to you, and even so, you can still spot bullshit. Spotting bullshit is described as much more of an attitude of mind, than the clever application of an obscure statistical method. It has as much to do with checking sources and thinking through the implications of what you’ve been told, than it does in finding ways to spot the right statistical analysis to run on the data. And this is a lucky thing. Not just because you might not choose the right statistical function, but rather because you probably are never going to be given the actual data anyway, just the conclusion. And as they say repeatedly throughout, there’s more than enough bullshit out there for all of us. And they’re not just talking of the over-the-top, QAnon (hey, I just ordered for a small Margaretta and now Hillary Clinton has turned up with a 7-year-old in lingerie) type bullshit. There’s lots of bullshit that sounds and looks and feels completely reasonable. And the authors here give you tools and loads of examples to spot just that.

Who amongst us is without sin? And I’m not just asking for a friend. We’ve all shared something on the internet that we regret. Especially when we realise with a rush of all-too-rare self-awareness, that the reason we posted it was because it appealed more to our prejudices than to our reason. This is inevitable. And this is also one of the things the authors repeatedly warn us we need to worry about. They quote Neil Postman saying that the person most likely to fool you is yourself. Confirmation bias is our number one, very favourite flavour of bias. So, finding ways to trip ourselves up before we start accepting as true the latest factoid that proves that all those bastards from the other side are selfish, nasty hypocrites is essential. We need to take time to pause. Although, that is easier said than done, obviously. But I’ve said it now, so, all good.

One of my favourite bits of this book – and it is clearly among the authors’ favourite bits too, since they repeat it so often – is the idea that ‘if it seems too good or too bad to be true, it probably is’. This is a strikingly useful test – but one that is insanely difficult to use. This is because it has to overcome the ‘I bloody well knew it’ response. And speaking for myself, a team of wild horses is often not enough to drag me away from a factoid that confirms what I’ve always known to be true. You might think you are holier than me on this – I just have to say that from my own experience on social media, I am going to need some pretty strong proof from you on that.

While they were quoting Postman, I think it would have been nice if they had also quoted one of his explanations for why we are drowning in quite so much bullshit. And that is that a lot of bullshit comes down to us from things that really don’t matter in our lives at all, but that we have been made to believe we are deeply interested in. For example, a recent story has it that Melania Trump has a body double and that it was this double who was out and about campaigning with Donald during the election campaign. Even if this story was 100% verifiable, hand on Bible, true, and even if tomorrow video emerged of an actress named Jane Smithers, or something, pulling on a Melania-type dress and fake boobs – what possible difference could it make to any of our lives? It would just be one more crazy thing that happened in the Trump White House. That is, in a White House that has specialised in ensuring a dozen crazy things have happened every day for four years and all before morning tea on each of those days. Even if it was true, how would you knowing that bit of truth about the fake Melania change your world?

Or take all of the recent excitement about the discovery of water on the moon. Or when so many very old celebrities die. Like when I found out Vera Lynn had died. My first reaction wasn’t “oh god, that’s terrible – we’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when…” it was rather, “But, didn’t she die years ago? She must have, the journalist has just got the names stuffed up. It’s probably Doris Day who has died.” And this is all part of the reason why we are so easily fooled – the truth is that Lynn or Day, it hardly matters at all to our real lives.

If I told you that in the Andes, they’d discovered a new species of humanoid that lived only 30,000 years ago, would you be certain that was bullshit? Or what if I told you that Honeywell are working on trapped ions because they think they are likely to prove to be more effective qubits than superconducting loops? The problem is with how the media has trained us throughout our lives. It makes our swallowing bullshit virtually inevitable. Look, I’d even read The God Particle, but not even I suspected the whole world would get quite so excited when the Higgs Boson was discovered. And this is because we live in a world where people are more interested in facts than narratives, in whats over whys. Even things that are definitely ‘true’ become bullshit when we have no context with which to understand them in. I mean, if you can’t tell me what the Higgs Boson does while it is grazing in the particle zoo, maybe your knowing it ‘exists’ doesn’t really matter.

But I digress. Look, trust me, you want to read this book. It will help you find love, your children will suddenly start to look up to you, your wife will overlook your all too numerous infidelities and you’ll win the lottery. ...more

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Aug 12, 2020 Ryan Boissonneault rated it it was amazing

Brandolini’s law, which states that “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it,” explains why there is so much bullshit in the world. As Uriel Fanelli put it, “an idiot can create more bullshit than you could ever hope to refute.”

So creating bullshit is easy; refuting it is hard. And it is precisely this asymmetry that explains why bullshit persists and how it can even grow over time.

So how can one hope to rid the world of incr Brandolini’s law, which states that “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it,” explains why there is so much bullshit in the world. As Uriel Fanelli put it, “an idiot can create more bullshit than you could ever hope to refute.”

So creating bullshit is easy; refuting it is hard. And it is precisely this asymmetry that explains why bullshit persists and how it can even grow over time.

So how can one hope to rid the world of increasing levels of bullshit? Since it’s easier to create bullshit than to refute it, simply refuting each new instance of bullshit seems like a losing battle. The better strategy is educational; if you can inoculate enough people against falling for bullshit in the first place, bullshit never gains enough traction to require costly efforts at refutation.

This, in essence, is the goal of the book. The authors want to immunize you against bullshit, with a focus on the quantitative variety. While it’s relatively easy to identify old-school bullshit based on flowery language and empty rhetoric, new-school bullshit is more insidious and sophisticated with its use of statistics, charts, graphs, and scientific-sounding claims. This is the bullshit that is more persuasive, harder to refute, and ultimately more dangerous.

The authors first note that while arguments based on statistical and scientific reasoning can appear intimidating, there are basic fallacies that one can look out for that do not require any advanced mathematical ability. It is rarely necessary to look into the “black box”—the authors’ term for complex equations, algorithms, or scientific processes—when the problem with bullshit is often the data that feeds into the black box. Recognizing that the data is biased or unrepresentative of the larger population, for example, is an easy method of spotting bullshit that does not require any skills in higher mathematics.

The authors then take the reader on a tour of quantitative fallacies with several examples, all explained clearly and with humor. The reader will learn how to differentiate between correlation and causation, spot biased and unrepresentative data and small sample sizes, identify selection biases in samples, understand how data can be manipulated visually, and more. The reader will also learn how to properly evaluate scientific claims, and how the anti-vaxx movement is based on a single, thoroughly-debunked scientific study that massively confuses correlation with causation, among many other problems.

One of my favorite chapters, chapter 8, has the authors calling bullshit on arguments that claim that artificial intelligence will take over the world. This has always been bullshit and likely always will be, as the authors demonstrate the limits of how machines are designed to “think.”

The book ends with a couple summary chapters on how to spot and refute bullshit, and also on the difference between calling legitimate bullshit and becoming what the authors refer to as a “well-actually guy.” Perhaps the most important point of the book is the idea that the goal of calling bullshit is not to demonstrate your intelligence and puff up your ego; it’s to counter the spread of misinformation in the world and its direct and indirect consequences.

Overall, I suppose that if the reader has a lot of experience with informal logic and spotting fallacies—particularly of a quantitative nature—then this book might not offer anything particularly new. Although even then the book is filled with interesting, updated examples and a ton of polemical humor which makes the book a fun read. If, on the other hand, the reader has limited experience with these concepts, this book is a must read as it shows how quantitative bullshit can be spotted and refuted with even the most limited of mathematical ability.
...more

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Dec 27, 2020 Mehrsa rated it really liked it

This is a very readable and interesting, but not particularly new or revelatory book about fake news, bullshit stats, and things like p-hacking and click-baiting articles. I've read books that are better at deepdives into this stuff, but this was a good intro to how to call BS. I found particularly fascinating the sections about deceptive graphs and stats because that stuff can be tricky. However, it does feel like bullshit is the least of our problems these days. given how people just believe o ...more

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Oct 27, 2020 Manuel Antão rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

Bullshititis: "Calling Bullshit - The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World" by Carl T. Bergstrom, Jevin West

Bullshit uses linear regression…?

They say that it's absurd to claim that women will be running faster than men at some point in the future, but it's worth pointing out that in a pragmatic, real way women are already running faster than men, in the sense that for a very large percentage of men, there are women out there runnin ...more

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Aug 06, 2020 Tara Brabazon rated it liked it

I had high hopes for this book. It is OK. It makes some strong points about quantification and the visualization of data sets. But in so many ways, it performs the problems it critiques, but in the inverse.

Two scientists write this book. Their commentary on science is welcome. But they are attempting to understand social media, historical transformations, the changes to education, and - indeed - affirm the value of media literacy training.

Intriguingly, the entire literature on information litera ...more

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Dec 03, 2020 Wick Welker rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction-favorites, nonfiction

Falsehoods fly and truth comes limping after it.

This is a very important book to read right now. I highly recommend reading it as soon as possible. What Bergstrom and his colleague accomplishes in "Calling Bullshit" is a blueprint of all the various ways in which lies, exaggerations, contextualizations and data misrepresentation flood the media sphere and have completely corrupted truth.

First principle: science is messy. As a medical doctor myself, I know that it is INCREDIBLY difficult to prove Falsehoods fly and truth comes limping after it.

This is a very important book to read right now. I highly recommend reading it as soon as possible. What Bergstrom and his colleague accomplishes in "Calling Bullshit" is a blueprint of all the various ways in which lies, exaggerations, contextualizations and data misrepresentation flood the media sphere and have completely corrupted truth.

First principle: science is messy. As a medical doctor myself, I know that it is INCREDIBLY difficult to prove that something is true (a drug, a therapy, mortality rates ect.) It can take decades of many randomized control trials to even create a landmark study that can change medical practice. With this in mind, how could one obscure research paper, whose hypothesis has been taken whole cloth and tacked into the twitterverse possible have any bearing on scientific thought or be a representation of reality? From my own experience almost all headlines that have to do with medicine, including the coronavirus, are complete and utter bullshit. As an ICU doc myself, I could go on and on and on about the misinformation of COVID-19. But I digress.

Calling Bullshit will outline to you the myriad of ways in which you are bullshitted. You'll learn about the Wakefield debacle connecting autism to MMR vaccine in 1998 which was based on a tiny cohort and has been completely disproved. But its influence is everlasting. The Brandolini principle is true: it's hard to disprove all the bullshit that is produced. It is much easier to blast the waves with bullshit than it is to unpack the nonsense and disprove it. Bullshit is easy to produce and easy to spread.

Technology has made the bullshit problem much worse. Forget the all-seeing eye of AI and tech, if you start out with garbage training programs for the algorithm, you will get garbage out. Is it any wonder that a paper claiming to recognize criminality from a picture would produce nothing but utter bullshit if the input data was headshots of non-criminals and MUGSHOTS of convicted criminals?

The low cost of production and publication has contributed to bullshit. There is more volume and less filtering. Advertising revenue is designed to make you click, regardless of content. "This this will 'make you cry' or 'make you angry'" ect are THE most clickable headlines. They convey emotion, not fact. News has changed from what is happening to how we are FEELING. There are those that will conflate probabilistic causality with sufficient or necessary causality stating that smoking doesn't kill you because there are smokers who don't die of lung cancer (thx Mike Pence). Bullshit also constantly conflates correlation with causality--YOU SEE THIS EVERYWHERE. But correlation doesn't sell newspapers, causation does, so this is why you see headlines proscribing that "wine is good for the heart". It's all bullshit.

Does a pitcher of beer cause more beer drinking? Or is that people who are serious about drinking beer order a pitcher? Does delayed gratification cause success (famous marshmallow trial) or does having rich parents correlate with a child being able to withstand not eating a marshmallow when it's in front of their face? Claiming the average over the median is also an enormous source of bullshit, like how claiming a tax plan will reduce "average" American taxes (when it increases median taxes and benefits the wealthy). There is meaningless numerosity: "this beverage is 99% free of caffeine" HMMM, SO IS COFFEE. Commercial branding that has an air of "mathiness" somehow commands authority over their consumers. Data visualization is a huge source of bullshit. Creating "ducks" where the data doesn't fit the graph or "glass slippers" where data has been cut to fit a specified visual representation.

Disinformation relies on trusted people in your social circle spreading bullshit. The bullshit propagates because people have emotion over a headline and repost without doing any vetting whatsoever. Computer generated faces are created now as profile pics for fake accounts and they can be very convincing. Bots are in fake real people with fake identities with a very real agenda who get retweeted by the likes of The New York Times.

Scientific publications are very guilty of bullshit. Scientists and researchers have the same motivations and desire for career advancement than anyone else. They employ the "prosecutors fallacy" in which a positive result in the test may paradoxically be more likely to be an erroneous result than an actual occurrence, even if the test is very accurate. This comes into play when the size of the matching is ignored. P hacking is a HUGE source of scientific bullshit where a researcher will curate their data to get that glorious p<0.05 to claim statistical significance. Significant results are over-represented in the data with negative results being published far less because they are less sexy. This can greatly skew and entire field. The media gets a hold of this bullshit and only publish positive results which are later debunked leading to mass disillusionment in the scientific process which is indeed still very sound. When a metric starts to become a target, it ceases to be a good metric.

The good news is that you don't need to get into the black box of the stastistical analysis of research to call bullshit. Remember the great tactic: if it's too bad or good to be true, it is. Our authors here give us some very good advice: ask yourself a few questions: what's the source? how do they know this? what are they selling? Avoid confirmation bias. Look at what the data is going in and what they are spitting out. When you call bullshit, it is a performative utterance. Be accurate, be correct, be humble and be kind. Also, pick your battles, you cannot call out ALL the bullshit.

Most of all remember this: the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself. ...more

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Dec 19, 2020 Farhana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science

I started this book while waiting for Abbu outside the ICU. The book ends today. So, today again I went to the hospital in front of the ICU.

I was wondering how much bullshit one person has to experience over the lifetime or even in a month. Anyway, this is a solid piece of work. Something that goes well beyond Darrell Huff's "How to lie with Statistics" and even more.

It mostly focuses on the bullshit that is presented in the form of information or anything that we tend to consume to act upon or ...more

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Sep 05, 2020 Grrlscientist rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you [thereafter], save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not sole, purpose of education.

— Idealist philosopher John Alexander Smith (1863–1939)

Spin. Fake News. Conspiracy theories. Lies. We are daily confronted with a stinking quagmire of misinformation, disinformation and fact-free drivel ...more

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May 01, 2020 Janet rated it it was amazing

Shelves: zz-2020-rev-when-i-read, k-e-k

As someone who was recently roasted and bullied online as they did not believe that I am a superspeed reader, (they even sent me links to articles that state that speed-reading is a fallacy and a farce..and the language got really bad after that ... on their side as they blocked incoming messages) Yes, I read that fast ... it is an eidetic memory thing that runs in my family but do I remember the book a week later? Mostly ... plot, ending, etc. but I certainly do no memorize it!

What kind of wor As someone who was recently roasted and bullied online as they did not believe that I am a superspeed reader, (they even sent me links to articles that state that speed-reading is a fallacy and a farce..and the language got really bad after that ... on their side as they blocked incoming messages) Yes, I read that fast ... it is an eidetic memory thing that runs in my family but do I remember the book a week later? Mostly ... plot, ending, etc. but I certainly do no memorize it!

What kind of world do we live in that people bully each other on #goodreads ??

Back to business....

When life for the entire universe and planet turns on its end and like everyone else you "have nothing to do" while your place of work is closed and you are in #COVID19 #socialisolation, superspeed readers like me can read 250+ pages/hour, so yes, I have read the book … and many more today. (I have played a "zillion games" of scrabble, done a "zillion crosswords" and I AM BORED!!!)

I requested and received a temporary digital Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley, the publisher and the author in exchange for an honest review.

From the publisher, as I do not repeat the contents or story of books in reviews, I let them do it as they do it better than I do 😸.

Bullshit isn’t what it used to be. Now, two science professors give us the tools to dismantle misinformation and think clearly in a world of fake news and bad data.

It’s increasingly difficult to know what’s true. Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound. Our media environment has become hyperpartisan. Science is conducted by press release. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. We are fairly well equipped to spot the sort of old-school bullshit that is based in fancy rhetoric and weasel words, but most of us don’t feel qualified to challenge the avalanche of new-school bullshit presented in the language of math, science, or statistics. In Calling Bullshit, Professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West give us a set of powerful tools to cut through the most intimidating data.

You don’t need a lot of technical expertise to call out problems with data. Are the numbers or results too good or too dramatic to be true? Is the claim comparing like with like? Is it confirming your personal bias? Drawing on a deep well of expertise in statistics and computational biology, Bergstrom and West exuberantly unpack examples of selection bias and muddled data visualization, distinguish between correlation and causation, and examine the susceptibility of science to modern bullshit.

We have always needed people who call bullshit when necessary, whether within a circle of friends, a community of scholars, or the citizenry of a nation. Now that bullshit has evolved, we need to relearn the art of scepticism.

The book dissects and repackages this subject expertly as every single day I hear "fake news / I did not tell people to inject themselves with Clorox / tanning beds are why I don't have COVID19 / etc etc. etc." This book can help you understand it and work through what you hear and make it make sense for me. This is expertly written and explained to the common reader: it is scholarly yet totally understandable. This would be an excellent book club pick as all of our kids are addicted to their screens and the bullying there and we need some help working through it. An excellent book and an excellent read!

As always, I try to find a reason to not rate with stars as I love emojis (outside of their incessant use by "🙏-ed Social Influencer Millennials/#BachelorNation survivors/Tik-Tok and YouTube Millionaires/etc. " on Instagram and Twitter... Get a real job, people!) so let's give it 📱📱📱📱📱 ...more

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Sep 11, 2020 Sam rated it really liked it

I'm giving this four stars and probably only skipping the fifth because of the pop title which undercuts the seriousness of the topic, IMO. Logic and Rhetoric have all but disappeared from educational programs when they were once mandated. Misinformation, disinformation and the manipulation of information seem more pervasive since, and I could claim a causal relationship, but would I be correct? It doesn't matter. What matters is that one understands what determines a causal relationship from a ...more

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Jun 22, 2020 Ramona Mead rated it liked it

Shelves: advanced-copies

I was expecting a light, funny, informational read when I selected this book. I should have known better with terms in the blurb like "expertise in statistics" and "examples of selection bias!" Don't get me wrong, this is an incredibly interesting book, and there's humor. It's thorough and it is DENSE, full of graphs and equations and research examples. It was over my head at times. I had to read small portions at a time (and sometimes re-read them) but it makes a lot of sense to me how we as a ...more

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Feb 09, 2021 Kaethe Douglas rated it really liked it

Shelves: math, nonfiction, skepticism, science, requested, social-issues

Like everyone else, I believe that I can't be fooled by...anything, ever. Knowing that it's just that certainty that makes one vulnerable, I deliberately give myself little booster shots of skepticism by reading every one of these books that comes out. But despite having a longish career in medical research spent dealing with data, there's always something. These days I think my greatest vulnerability is my own experience: often I overlook the simplest grounds for calling bullshit while trying t ...more

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Jan 07, 2021 Philipp rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, on-thinking

I guess this is Sagan's Demon-Haunted World for 2021? Both authors go through the most common ways that data is used to bullshit people and to create narratives. It grew out of a university course (Calling Bullshit) and goes over ways data is misrepresented, chosen, how sometimes counter-intuitively data can be interpreted, how people trying to sell you stuff or ideas can manipulate data to tell the story they want to tell,

So if you want to learn how to spot when someone tries to BS you, go for ...more

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Jan 31, 2021 Glen rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, firstreads, how-to, self-help

I won this book in a goodreads drawing.

A book that shows you how to think critically. Could be useful. Unfortunately, it relies on Snopes for some of its examples, and they've shown they can't really be trusted. "Fact checking" has become just so much...BS.

Still, some useful stuff here. ...more

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Sep 30, 2020 Jessica Mae Stover added it

Currently reading this one, but noticed that no one has yet dropped the link for the professors' course at UW, which has been available online since before the book was finished: https://www.callingbullshit.org/sylla... I'd also like to add some context.

I made author CT Bergstrom's acquaintance over the early winter after finding his course online. In addition to studying disinformation, he's a bio professor and career epidemiologist, and his Twitter feed is why I was prepared earlier than nearl Currently reading this one, but noticed that no one has yet dropped the link for the professors' course at UW, which has been available online since before the book was finished: https://www.callingbullshit.org/sylla... I'd also like to add some context.

I made author CT Bergstrom's acquaintance over the early winter after finding his course online. In addition to studying disinformation, he's a bio professor and career epidemiologist, and his Twitter feed is why I was prepared earlier than nearly everyone for the pandemic, and was able to begin preparing family (which was not a simple matter at that early date, when there was still a lot of hesitation). It's not just that I had hand sanitizer, toilet paper and was ready to shelter at home: at a time when the lockdown hadn't yet begun and we had no testing and therefore didn't know the local numbers in our region, his scientific posts along with those of the colleagues he elevated like STAT News reporter Helen Branswell and Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch may have saved lives in my circle in particular, and certainly saved that of others in the wider world. You might have seen him on the BBC etc. early on when he appeared to help educate the western world when the "flatten the curve" chart first began circulating. Here's more about that: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/scien...

And so with the arrival and US federal mismanagement of the pandemic, and the associated disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories, it turns out the release of Calling Bullshit is more timely than the authors imagined when they began their project years ago.

I hope the ideas within are widely circulated, understood and applied by readers. If you're curious, I expect that your library already has this book available for you to browse, and to see what you think.

A related text I'd also suggest (and that is included in the authors' coursework) is Carl Sagan's wonderful The Demon Haunted World, which remains a must-read and as a bonus can be casually enjoyed chapter by chapter over time. Each section is an essay that works independently and within the whole. ...more

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Dec 15, 2020 Michael rated it it was amazing

At first I thought this was going to be a rehash of all the other books out there on cognitive biases, but it turned out to include quite a few things I haven't heard articulated very well, like how the scientific process and publishing industry work, and about AI and big data (this section was excellent). This is a book I could happily recommend to others as a primer on critical thinking and spotting, ahem, bullshit, especially on the internet. The authors did a really good job of not making it ...more

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Aug 07, 2020 Tomas H rated it really liked it

Shelves: the-economist

It is currently August 2020 and there is a peak volume of bullshit in the world right now. Feel free, my fellow readers in the future, note this date of August 2020 for those of you who find this review, and search who the US president is right now and look up something called “Pizzagate” that I am embarrassed to say I saw a friend re-post on social media a lengthy explanation of how utterly true it is. Again, it is August 2020. Pizzagate was a conspiracy theory in 2016. Bullshit can make a come ...more

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Nov 03, 2020 Mark Ainsworth rated it it was amazing

Totally worth the read! Clear and well written - I understand certain aspects of statistics and how they are presented much better now. Excellent!

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Aug 06, 2020 Deedi Brown (DeediReads) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley

All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Calling Bullshit is a slightly mathy but surprisingly useful book about how to think critically about the information and research we read about in the news.

For you if: You’ve taken an intro to statistics class and want to learn how data and studies can be misleading.

FULL REVIEW:

I was pleasantly surprised by Calling Bullshit. A lot of big idea nonfiction books should really just be a TED Talk, but I didn’t feel that way about t All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.

TL;DR REVIEW:

Calling Bullshit is a slightly mathy but surprisingly useful book about how to think critically about the information and research we read about in the news.

For you if: You’ve taken an intro to statistics class and want to learn how data and studies can be misleading.

FULL REVIEW:

I was pleasantly surprised by Calling Bullshit. A lot of big idea nonfiction books should really just be a TED Talk, but I didn’t feel that way about this one. And it had some good jokes, too!

The mission of the authors of Calling Bullshit is to give people the knowledge and tools to prevent themselves from being duped too often by misleading (either deliberately or not) information, especially in statistics and scientific studies. It starts out with “correlation vs causation” and issues with data samples, which are probably the most often recognized types of BS, but then it goes beyond that into things like misleading practices in data visualization, the true limitations of determining statistical significance in scientific studies, and even biases and selection bias in scientific journal publications.

This book is by two scientists, two professors. And so expect that going in — their arguments are rooted in math and statistics. I think if you’ve taken an intro to statistics class, you’ll be able to follow along no problem. Of course, if you have a mathy mind, that will help, but I don’t think it’s totally necessary. Just be ready for it.

While I did know some of what they covered before (mostly the first few chapters, which makes sense — they had to make sure everyone was on the same page before building on those concepts — I learned quite a bit in the later chapters. And I took statistics three times: in high school, during undergrad, and at business school. None of them were particularly high-level stats classes, but still. For example, I had never learned about the “prosecutor’s dilemma,” which has huge implications! And I really appreciated the chapter on journal publications and why we can’t necessarily take studies as fact.

I finished this book feeling empowered and even more eager to start spotting bullshit out in the wild. ...more

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Nov 24, 2020 Tõnu Vahtra rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was definitely interesting book but not remarkable and I had higher expectations (probably I have read too much books on this topic already), it's mostly about logical thinking around statistics + avoiding cognitive fallacies (correlation vs causation et al). The "interesting part" was the various examples, many of them already familiar but also new ones (Lombaroso's "Criminal Man", Chameleon's life cycle). I don't find it very difficult to identify BS when it comes to numbers, it's much mo ...more

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Jan 23, 2021 Joeri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-of-science, infodemic

This book offers valuable tools and skills that can help refute misinformation, which at least on me had an empowering effect.

Wit the rise of the internet and social media we see the spread of misinformation and conspiracies surge, and as we are thus awash in what the University of Amsterdam coined 'the infodemic', honing what some philosophers call our epistemic duties might be in need of a new impulse. This book greatly succeeds in doing so. It offers useful ways to not only detect misinforma ...more

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Sep 24, 2020 Ajay Sambhriya rated it really liked it

Inspired from Harry Frankfurt's "On bullshit", the book does a great job introducing the real world bullshit that is ubiquitous in the age of Internet, ways to discern and call it out.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘎𝘦𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴. “9 𝘉𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘛𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘥 𝘜𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳,” 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘧𝘶𝘭, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘵. 𝘐𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢 Inspired from Harry Frankfurt's "On bullshit", the book does a great job introducing the real world bullshit that is ubiquitous in the age of Internet, ways to discern and call it out.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘎𝘦𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘚𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴. “9 𝘉𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘛𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘥 𝘜𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘳,” 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘥. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘧𝘶𝘭, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘱𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘵. 𝘐𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳? 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺. 𝘐𝘯 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘴—𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘶𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴. 𝘊𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳.
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘦? 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘎𝘦𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦 𝘨𝘰 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳. 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨—𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦. 𝘐𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘰-𝘦𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘴. 𝘕𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭; 𝘸𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘳, 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘥 “𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴” 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 “𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴.”

𝘐𝘧 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘴. ...more

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Aug 16, 2020 Miguel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is such a timely book considering the amount of disinformation that is actively and haphazardly being thrust at us every day on social media. The authors walk the reader through a wide array of bad information, biases, mis-truths, and fallacies to help recognize these and how to approach correcting or refuting these. It’s highly entertaining and informative throughout. In the early chapter they point out Brandolini’s principle which is: “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an ...more

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Oct 08, 2020 Angelica rated it really liked it

Shelves: library

I started following Carl Bergstrom on Twitter for his commentary on COVID-19, which is how I found out about this book.

I thought it was an interesting read and very thought-provoking. It also made me painfully aware of my lack of understanding of statistics; I should probably fill that hole at some point. 😂

I very much appreciated that they emphasized at the end how important it is to proceed with grace and compassion when pointing out that someone else is wrong. It shouldn’t be about “winning” a ...more

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Sep 29, 2020 Luke rated it it was ok

Was this book bull-shitting me??

I found it too dense - to many examples and cramming to much in. Also found it had negative lilt to it making it even heavier. A lot of the stats methods I've learned before and was fine to read about them again but I didn't feel like they were effectively training the reader to be able to call bullshit.

I think it would have been more effective to give the reader an actual headline, ask them to pause and think about the ways it could be bullshit and then the autho ...more

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Oct 30, 2020 Grrlscientist rated it really liked it

Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you [thereafter], save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not sole, purpose of education.

— Idealist philosopher John Alexander Smith (1863 – 1939)

Spin. Fake News. Conspiracy theories. Lies. We are daily confronted with a stinking quagmire of misinformation, disinformation and fact-free driv

Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you [thereafter], save only this, that if you work hard and intelligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not sole, purpose of education.

— Idealist philosopher John Alexander Smith (1863 – 1939)

Spin. Fake News. Conspiracy theories. Lies. We are daily confronted with a stinking quagmire of misinformation, disinformation and fact-free drivel. How do we sort the truth from the lies? This is the premise of the timely new book, Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World (Allen Lane/Random House, 2020), a book that effectively acts as a field guide to the art of critical thinking.

The authors are expert guides. Carl Bergstrom is a theoretical and evolutionary biologist who researches how information flows through biological and social networks. Jevin West is a data scientist who studies misinformation in science and society. Together, they teach a popular undergraduate class offered under the same name by the University of Washington.

This book, a distillation of that course, presents a mix of amusing anecdotes, timely news stories and accessible explanations of scientific and medical data. You do not need to be a professional statistician or some other sort of mathematical wizard, nor must you invest weeks into fact-checking to see through most nonsense. Instead, the authors argue, assessing the accuracy of a particular claim using basic logic, augmented (where necessary) with information that can be easily retrieved by an online search engine is sufficient to “call bullshit”.

The authors point out that creating bullshit is easier and often simpler than speaking the truth. That is why BS is accepted as truth. Italian software engineer, Alberto Brandolini perhaps said it best when he noted in 2014 that “the amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than [that needed] to produce it”, which explains why there is so much baloney in the world. Uriel Fanelli helpfully observed that “an idiot can create more BS than you could ever hope to refute.”

So why bother “calling bullshit”? As the authors assert, adequate bullshit detection is essential for the survival of democracy. Regardless of political ideologies, democracy has always relied on a critically thinking electorate, and this intellectual skill is more important than ever in this modern age of online information warfare. It also is critically important for proper functioning of any social group, whether it is a small group of friends or some other social group, or a professional community.

This book teaches us how to identify the various forms of new-school bullshit: how to evaluate scientific claims, to distinguish between correlation and causation, to recognize biased and unrepresentative data and small sample sizes, to identify selection biases in samples, to understand how data can be manipulated visually, and more. They also include lots of graphs and other data images so you can practice spotting screwy data representations yourself. Whether you are confused by the anti-vax movement, which grew out of a single retracted medical study, to the claim that Artificial Intelligence can infer sexual orientation from analyzing a photograph of a person’s face, there is no shortage of nutty ideas out there to contemplate and dissect.

The book ends with two empowering chapters on how to spot and refute nonsense and, more importantly, how to do so in a useful and constructive way.

Ironically, despite the authors’ assertion that proper fact-checking is essential, the book only has an alphabetized reference list for each chapter in the back of the book, leaving interested readers to scratch their collective heads as they try to deduce which statement should be attributed to which source. And although mistakes do inevitably creep in during the writing and editing process, I was surprised that the letter M in the commonly used acronym, STEM, was erroneously attributed to medicine, instead of mathematics. And yes, I was disappointed by the poor quality paper that the book was printed on.

Despite my complaints (some of which are probably beyond the authors’ control), Calling Bullshit presents a thoughtful, careful and engaging deconstruction about how to spot and disprove nonsense. It should be required reading for high school and university students as well as for any thinking person who is working to identify questionable news sources and stories, and navigate their way around social media in these weird times.

...more

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Feb 20, 2021 Nalini rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Most of this book is stuff that I (and probably many readers) am familiar with intellectually but don't necessarily apply reflexively whenever I read the news or hear a statistic. So for me, this book was really useful in that it primed me to intentionally be on the defensive about common misrepresentations in statistics and data visualization.

By far my favorite chapter in this book was the one on selection bias; it's easy to think about selection bias when you're reading an econ paper or a cli ...more

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Sep 08, 2020 Phil Simon rated it it was amazing

Shelves: curent-affairs

I can think of few more important books to read these days than this one.

Yeah, some of the material is old hat to me. By way of background, one of my own books is on data visualization. Beyond that, I've known for years the ways that others contrive graphs and data to further their goals. (Hello Fox News.)

No bother. The authors do a fascinating job of synthesizing the problem and offering solutions. I'm not terribly hopeful that we'll prevent others from generating insane levels of bullshit. A ...more

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Nov 11, 2020 Alejandro Rentería rated it it was amazing

A great addition to any bookshelf. This book discusses in depth the pitfalls of using data, visualisations and "mathiness" the wrong way and how it can mislead or bluntly disinform readers. This is, sadly, an increasing phenomena on our day to day lives , "lies fly and the truth comes limping behind".
The author gives out a formula in the last chapter on how to spot BS and call it out on a easy and non-confronting way. And it's not hard, it's just a habit we have to develop since we live on the d ...more

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Aug 29, 2020 Tamara Niemi rated it it was amazing

This should really be required reading for everyone. The ways in which data are intentionally and unintentionally manipulated to convey a certain point can be subtle but Bergstrom and West guide you through it with ease. Honestly, the book is worth reading for the footnotes alone, which are extensive and often hilarious. I loved this book, but what I loved the most was the final chapter, showing how to refute bullshit with accuracy and empathy, and a not so subtle call to readers to not become a ...more

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