The Fallacy Detective: Thirty-Eight Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning

Recently updated, the workbook edition provides students space to record responses to lesson exercises. Learn how to recognize bad reasoning and spot errors in others' logic, and your own. The focus is on practical logic such as fallacies you might encounter in a newspaper. Learn to identify red herrings, circular reasoning, statistical fallacies, and propaganda. Each lesson presents several examples of poor reasoning (often illustrated by cartoons) and then provides a lengthy exercise set. Includes answer key and teaching tips for homeschoolers/private schools at authors' website. Religiously neutral. Not reproducible. 262 pgs. 

The Fallacy Detective has been the best selling text for teaching logical fallacies and introduction to logic for over 20 years.

"Can learning logic be fun? With The Fallacy Detective it appears that it can be. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to improve his reasoning skills."--Tim Challies, curriculum reviewer

"Cartoon and comic illustrations, humorous examples, and a very reader-friendly writing style make this the sort of course students will enjoy."--Cathy Duffy, homeschool curriculum reviewer

"I really like The Fallacy Detective because it has funny cartoons, silly stories, and teaches you a lot!"--11 Year Old

What is a fallacy? A fallacy is an error in logic a place where someone has made a mistake in his thinking. This is a handy book for learning to spot common errors in reasoning.

- For ages twelve through adult.

- Fun to use -- learn skills you can use right away.

- Peanuts, Dilbert, and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.

- Includes The Fallacy Detective Game.

• Exercises with answer key.

I love your book! I never knew how much fun logic was until I read your book. P.S. I am 12 years old. --Paul Muenster, student

I'm always delighted when two sides that seem mutually opposed come together in harmonious agreement. I'm even more delighted when I've taken one of those sides. In this case, I write of the efforts of Nathaniel and Hans Bluedorn, brothers from Iowa who advocate homeschooling and create educational materials from a Christian worldview. The fruit of the latest Bluedorn effort is a short text, The Fallacy Detective, designed to be a primer in logic for older children, specifically homeschooled Christian children, though the book is intended for anyone who wants to explore the subject. . . . I find it wonderful that the Bluedorns, among others, are actively reinvigorating the religious world with a healthy dose of independent thought . . . --Andrew C. Thomas, The Tech (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

My family and I are really enjoying your book. Even my youngest son, who is eight, enjoys attempting to answer the questions. Your book was a great introduction to another program that I had purchased. Going directly into that program probably would have bored my children to tears but now they are interested in the concepts of logic. My children became instantly attracted to the program because of the the comic segments but later couldn't put it down. --LaVera, MD, parent

In 1999 Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn decided to try to turn their interest in logic into a livelihood by starting FallacyDetective.com. Since then, they have written two books on logic for children and adults, The Fallacy Detective and The Thinking Toolbox.

Target age: Baby to 12

Christian Logic

April 5, 2015

6.5 x 9

264 pages

Paperback