Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell, Jeff Riggenbach (Read by)

Economic Facts and Fallaciesby Anonymous

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August 31, 2008: I would strongly recommend Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell to any person interested in sociology and logical fallacy. It is deliciously ironic that Sowell sets out to debunk economic fallacies primarily by employing a diverse lot of logical fallacies. The comparison to Monty Pythons Theory on Brontosauruses is made due to Sowell's lack of ability to 'or perhaps simply choosing not to' provide any alternative theories of his own in place of his so called 'fallacies', at least none more compelling then dinosaurs being pointy at one end, rather thicker in the middle and then narrowing down again at the other. The Theory of Intelligent Design is brought about because Mr. Sowell seems to believe, like the ID crowd, that simply by finding fault in one explanation 'the fossil record has gaps, the median age of black Americans is lower then whites' the remaining argument is proven false. Two of my favorite examples from the book are his discussion of race riots following the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and his explanation of why employers didn't hire females into the work force due to their potential to disrupt productivity. Surely an author as knowledgeable as Mr. Sowell would be aware that there was a tremendous amount of discord and anger prior to 1965 and that it was because of this that the Voting Rights Act 'over much strenuous objection' was brought about. It is an egregious misuse of logical cause and effect to suggest that passage of the Act caused the riots or even to suggest that passage of the Act prior to the riots extinguished the claim that poverty, unemployment and racial discrimination where among the root causes. Turning to Mr. Sowell's treatment of Male-Female Facts and his suggestion that one of the current causes of female underpayment is because in years past 'the distraction of a female worker in their 'the mens' midst could adversely affect productivity, even if the woman herself was just as productive as the men' is simply pandering. Yes, in a kindergarten class this might be a plausble argument, 'cooties are real' but give American Industry some credit. Even 50 or 80 years ago industry and agriculture were run by adults. There didn't seem to be any problem having women building planes and tanks during the 40's. In short, I find this book to be an excellent example of Clarance Thomasism 'I got mine so you should be able to get yours too' and if read as such will prove enlightening. I strongly recommend a companion book, Nonsense: A Handbook of Logical Fallacies by Robert Gula as a companion read. The two fit together like hand in glove.