Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders

This is a nice little introduction of logical fallacies, with examples of how we encounter them in real life. Each chapter is an introduction to a category of fallacies, and then it’s further broken down into specifics.

The author covers things like Post Hoc fallacies, refutation by reputation, ad hominem attacks, etc. For each, he has examples of what they look like when you encounter them. He writes well – the explanations are clear and well-structured.

Most of the examples are from politics, but – and this is my one gripe with the book – a lot of them are from religion. I agree that there’s a lot in religion that can be attacked from a logical standpoint, but the book borders on being an atheistic polemic. The author clearly has an ax to grind against religion, and with the amount of emphasis he puts on it, perhaps that should have been more clearly noted on the jacket.

Otherwise, a great little book. Short read. Enjoyed it very much.