In this book Jamie Whyte, a former philosophy lecturer at Cambridge University, does pretty much what he promises in the subtitle: “Exposing the bogus arguments of politicians, priests, journalists, and other serial offenders.”

This book starts off with a very in-depth logical approach that is, at times, a little bit too pedantic even for my taste. For example, the first chapter talks about the cliché “You are entitled to your opinion” and goes through the painstaking logical deduction that, although you are free to hold an opinion, it is obviously not guaranteed to be correct. Therefore, when debating the correctness of your opinion versus another opinion, the cop-out “I’m entitled to my opinion” is entirely irrelevant to the topic under debate. Roughly equivalent in merit to a statement such as “I am wearing leather shoes!”

Later in the book he mellows out a little and gets closer to Ben Goldacre’s style in Bad Science — pointing out public blunders and pseudo-scientific nonsense. Such as New Labour’s 1997 claim that 35% of British children live in ‘poverty’, under the rather unconventional definition of ‘poverty’ as “household income less than 60% of the national median household income”. His analysis is sound and comprehensive, but I’ll be flippant and say that this statistic is about as useful as declaring that 50% of children live in ‘poverty’ because they have a below-average household income. Something must be done! Increase taxes!

Another amusing part that makes a good anecdote is The Times reporting a BMA statistic in 2000, saying that anorexia affects 2% of young women and kills a fifth of sufferers. Jamie ran the numbers and concluded that, at this rate, anorexia is so deadly that it kills sixteen times the number of young women that die from any causes, including anorexia. Something must be done!

Overall this book is an interesting read and at only 150 pages in length, it’s not an epic. Persevere through the beginning — it gets better in the latter half and there are a few great gems waiting there for you.