Chapter 3
*Introduction: recognizing the common tricks of deception
*Trick #1 Misnomers
a) Misleading names and phrases
b) Ex. President Clinton's 94' ban on assault weapons only banned “semiautomatic” weapons, as opposed to the fully automatic weapons that had been banned since 1934.
c) look behind the name
*Trick #2 Frame it and claim it
a) allowing the name to appeal to the masses to help persuade them to their side, an intentional misnomer to grasp attention.
*Trick #3 Weasel Words
a) Sucking the meaning out of a phrase or sentence i.e. “Up to 50% off”
b) reels the customer in with phrasing implying items in the store would be 50% off, the weasel words allow few ,possibly just one, item to be 50% off.
c) Even journalists are guilty of weasel words, using words that allow them to cover ignorance of an unknown fact.
*Trick #4 Eye Candy
a) appealing to the audiences visual stimuli to distract from the true message
b) “listen” to the fine print
*Trick #5 the average bear
a) Average does not necessarily mean typical
b) look at the numbers being averaged
*Trick #6 The Baseline Bluff
a) An implication of a cut, but unbeknown to the patron what that cut might entail if it even implies a “cut” at all.
*Trick #7 The Literally True Falsehood
a) Choosing words that are deceptive but not actually lies
*Trick #8 The Implied falsehood
a) Implying meanings or truths without having to say them at all

Chapter 4
*Humans were not wired to think rationally
*Cognitive dissonance – the unpleasant feeling of psychological conflict when deeply help beliefs are challenged by conflicting evidence.
*Barking Moonbat - “someone who sacrifices sanity for the sake of consistency”
*Humans are not the fact-driven, rational beings we like to think we are, the human mind operates in ways that defy logic
*Seek out weak evidence, ignore evidence that undercuts the beliefs
*overgeneralize from vivid, dramatic single examples
*People making an argument manipulate words and the way they present their case
*Third-Person Effect – the notion that others will be affected by exposure to messages while we are immune and wishful thinking
*Deceivers exploit humans tendency to stereotypes; we need to avoid mental shortcuts
*Commitment to a cause colors our thinking and affects what we see in the world around us
*Confirmation bias
*Strong tendency for people to come up with reasons favoring their own side and neglecting those for the opposing side (3x more likely)
*Apply a bit of the scientific method to claims
*The more uninformed we are the more strongly we insist that we're correct
*Spreading of alternatives effect – a natural human tendency to make ourselves feel better about the choices we have made, even at the expense of accuracy or consistency
*watch for irrelevant or nonexistent reasons; do not rely on mindlessness or mental shortcuts
*avoid being deceived by making sure the pictures in our heads come as close to reflecting the world outside