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Thirty-Five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills
by Nathaniel Bluedorn, Hans Bluedorn
The Thinking Toolbox has been the best selling text for teaching critical thinking skills and introduction to logic for over 15 years.
"The Bluedorns have certainly achieved their goal of creating a logic textbook that is neither boring nor distant, but rather informative, approachable, enjoyable, and valuable." - Jordan J. Ballor at the Acton Institute --Acton Institute web site
"I think the best part of The Thinking Toolbox would be the examples because they are hilarious. . . . I would highly recommend this book. It's useful and great comedy at the same time." Sarah (age 11) --student
This book is like a toolbox, full of different kinds of tools you can use for different thinking tasks. Just as you use the wrench in a regular tool box to fix the sink, so you can use the tools we give you in this book to solve thinking problems.
- When it is dumb to argue
- Using the scientific method
- Five rules of brainstorming
- Who has a reason to lie?
- How to analyze opposing viewpoints
- How to analyze evidence and sources
- How to list reasons why you believe something
- And much more
We wrote this book for children and adults who want to learn logic and critical thinking skills. The Thinking Toolbox follows the same style as The Fallacy Detective with lessons and exercises and an answer key in the back. Parents and teachers, as well as anybody who wants to learn logic, will find The Thinking Toolbox easy to use and practical.
Features:
- Fun to use not dry like a math textbook
- Can be used after The Fallacy Detective
- Introductory teaches skills you can use right away
- Self-teaching format
- For ages thirteen and older
- Over 60 cartoon illustrations by Richard LaPierre
Paperback, size 9" x 6.5", 292 pages
The Fallacy Detective
Thirty-Eight Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning
by Nathaniel Bluedorn, Hans Bluedorn
A book that introduces Catholic logic and critical thinking by blowing up the tricksterism of Madison Avenue advertising, campaign sloganeering, media grandstanding, product endorsements, and billboard jingoism. Fun to use. Self-teaching, not intimidating. Starts with skills you can use right way. A fallacy is an error in logic, a place where someone has made a mistake in his thinking. These are fallacies, with more in the book to smile your way to exercising your mind and learning how to identify screwy thinking:
- A cloud is 90% water. A watermelon is 90% water. Therefore, since a plane can fly through a cloud, a plane can fly through a watermelon.
- Christianity came along in the first century, and a few hundred years after that, the Roman Empire fell, Christianity must have made it fall.
- "A low income level seems to be the greatest factor contributing to why some families, where both parents work full time, are still below the poverty line."
- "The bristlecone pine trees are said to live for thousands of years. That's why I take a capsule a day of dried bristlecone pine bark. I think it will help me live longer."
- "I've been looking into the history of wars. It seems as if, just before any war, all the countries involved build large armies. I think that the building of a large army causes war."
- Magazine ad: "Does the pain medication you use now start to work in less than one second?"
- In a commercial, a handsome man with big, bulging muscles is seen working out on the new Gutwrencher exercise machine. "Tone up your muscles in two weeks!" it says.
GET A GRIP ON ALL THE BASIC HEAD GAMES: Red herring fallacies ad hominem (against the man) attacks * genetic fallacy (attacking an argument for where it began, how it began, or who began it)* faulty appeal to authority * appeal to the people * straw man * circular reasoning * loaded question * part-to-whole * whole-to-part * either-or * making false assumptions * hasty generalizations * weak analogy post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore, because of this) * proof by lack of evidence * bandwagon * appeal to pity * repetition * propaganda * snob appeal * appeal to Tradition and Hi-tech.
Geared for junior high and older, but it would make great table talk for whatever age. Each of the 36 lessons has exercises, with an Answer Key at the back. Includes THE FALLACY DETECTIVE GAME, giving you, family, and friends an entertaining way to spot and make up your own examples of fallacies. Written specifically from a Christian worldview with practical relevancy to the crisis in media bias. Learn not just to think, but to think right.
Paperback, size 9" x 6.5", 233 pages, Illustrated, Answer Key
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