Entertaining - bad for actually calling bullshit

Engaging to listen to and a great performance!

For actually calling bullshit, I think it's a very lackluster guide. The authors picked mostly very simple examples, not preparing people for "real-world cases".
Although the authors warn against being too quick to jump in and being a "well, ahktschually"-person, this lesson is not stressed even remotely enough. In most real-world cases, many other people have already had a look at the argument, making it very rare for you to spot the bullshit. Too often have I seen discussions about papers where self-proclaimed bullshit-callers come up with "well, did the study account for <insert obvious confounder>"? In the very large majority of the cases, bullshit would've already been called.

Once the subjects get a bit more complex, I disagree with the authors on multiple cases. They bring up a traffic expansion, where a lot of lanes were added to a highway for many millions, without much affecting travel times. The authors argue this neglects to mention the throughput of the highway, which increased massively. A glance into the city planning literature should have shown that city planners are mainly focused on reducing trip times. For good reason! Sure, with the new highway, you share the fate of being stuck in traffic with maybe twice the number of people, but you don't get anything out of it. All of this while other places with different zoning regulations and less of a car-centric suburban-sprawl-focused approach to city planning achieve walkable neighborhoods with good public transport and no congested 18-lane monstrosities.

There are other examples I could go into where I claim the authors missed the mark. In that case, this book is a good exercise for the readers who think they can already call bullshit.

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