Calling Bullshit: The Art of Scepticism in a Data-Driven World

We think we know bullshit when we hear it, but do we? A spotter’s guide to bullshit in the wild from two brilliantly contrarian scientists

The world is awash in bullshit, and we’re drowning in it. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Start-up culture elevates hype to high art. These days, calling bullshit is a noble act.

Calling Bullshit gives us the tools to see through the obfuscations, deliberate and careless, that dominate every realm of our lives. In this lively guide, biologist Carl Bergstrom and statistician Jevin West show that calling bullshit is crucial to a properly functioning social group, whether it be a circle of friends, a community of researchers, or the citizens of a nation. Through six rules of thumb, they help us recognize bullshit whenever and wherever we encounter it – even within ourselves – and explain it to a crystal-loving aunt or casually racist grandfather.

Review Quotes:
\”A modern classic . . . Bergstrom and West leave the reader feeling a very particular kind of smarter: the empowered kind. . . . A straight-talking survival guide to the mean streets of a dying democracy and a global pandemic.\” –Wired

\”A passionate exposition of how the language of science can be weaponized to mislead both researchers and the public . . . landing just when it has never been more important to know how to navigate data.\” –Nature

\”The information landscape is strewn with quantitative cowflop; read this book if you want to know where not to step.\” –Jordan Ellenberg, author of How Not to be Wrong

\”If I could make this critical handbook’s contents required curriculum for every high school student (thus replacing trigonometry), then I would do so. I highly recommend Calling Bullshit for our modern existence in the age of misinformation, and regret only that I didn’t think of the title for my own book.\” –Cathy O’Neil, author of Weapons of Math Destruction

\”I laughed, I cried–to read Bergstrom and West’s great examples of ‘bullshit.’ This is a gripping read for anybody who cares about how we are fooled (and how not to be), and the connection to numeracy and science. But it’s also just great fun. This is a necessary book for our times.\” –Saul Perlmutter, Nobel Laureate and professor of physics, University of California at Berkeley

\”If you want to read what will surely be a classic, buy Calling Bullshit. It addresses the most important issue of our time: the decline in respect for Truth. It is also a literary masterpiece. Every page–indeed, every paragraph–is a new bit of fun.\” –George Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Laureate in economics

\”Each of us now swims through deception so pervasive that we no longer realize it’s there. Calling Bullshit presents a master class in how to spot it, how to resist it, and how to keep it from succeeding.\” –Paul Romer, 2018 Nobel Laureate in economics

\”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’ . . . a statistically challenging master class in the art of bullshit detection.\” –Kirkus Reviews

Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Publication date: 05/08/2021