CONTENTS

Introduction
Sellers' Market
Will to Believe
Rules of Thumb

"The truth is out there "
Use & misuse of words
False information signals more false information
Technical whiz-bang
Understand the Context
Lies, More Lies, Damn Lies and Newspapers
Beware of Generalizations
Theology and scripture
Misleading Statistics
Smoke in your eyes:
What is Missing?
Myth versus fact versus narrative
The past was not like the present; the future will be different

Fallacy Recognition in the Middle East

Fallacies and Arguments
Cause and Effect
Slippery Slope
Gambler's Fallacy
Ad Hominem
Authority
Beliefs
Appeal to Novelty
Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to Tradition
False Dilemma or Black and White Thinking
Special Pleading
The Spotlight Fallacy
Who is to Say?

Fallacy Handbook

Photos are very persuasive. Show a destroyed building or a destroyed block and write beneath it "Beirut was destroyed" and people will believe it, even if every other building in Beirut is still standing.

Faked photo of smoke over Beirut	Real photo + brightening

Smoke can be and has been added to photos to make them seem more dramatic on the left. This was done deliberately apparently by a Reuters photographer. On the right, what is apparently a real photo of the same scene without extra smoke has been made lighter by me, to prove a point. Which one is reality? Clearly there was less real damage than seems to be the case in the left hand photo, but both photos were manipulated.

The same picture can be labeled, "Israeli rocket landing in Tyre" (AFP as above) or "Hezbollah rocket launched from Tyre," (correct, Reuters) The aggressors are portrayed as the victims. The "errors" are made time and again by biased photographers in supposedly reputable news services.

Home destroyed, July 22, 2006	Destroyed again, August 5, 2006

The woman crying for her destroyed home is very convincing, but what if the same woman, with the same dimple in her cheek, appears in several cities, crying for several different destroyed homes?