Rhetorical Analysis of Proofiness by Charles Seife
Proofiness, a book written by Charles Seife, talks of how numbers can be used to lie to the public. The nature of numbers hold upon us with our conscience believing they hold authority. The author explains a variety of strategies on how numbers could fool people. Seife goes on to tell of who uses such strategies to influence the public. Charles Seife’s Proofiness builds up ethos, pathos, and logos throughout the novel before destroying them in the end.
Proofiness establishes its credibility from Charles Seife’s numerous degrees in mathematics and journalism (“Charles Seife – NYU Journalism”). Ethos is built up when the reader looks at all the research Charles Seife did on how we are lied to with numbers (Seife 273-286). The ethos is furthered by the detail the author goes into with examples of proofiness. An example of this was the “McCleskey v. Kemp” Supreme Court case, where Georgia’s death penalty was called into question as unconstitutional punishment (213-216). However, the ethos is diminished with other examples Charles Seife gives where he writes until he begins ranting of the subject and loses control and then his credibility control. One such time is the beginning of chapter three where he starts to rant about how NASA does not protect their people and that the Challenger Disaster could have been averted if only NASA had not thrown caution to the wind (69). NASA is a highly respected government agency with only the best people in their fields coming to work there; without referencing to one of NASA’s many triumphs, Apollo 11’s Moon landing or Curiosity rover come to mind, he flaws his work with cherry-picking details. The book holds a large amount of credibility in the beginning, but Charles Seife lets proofiness get to himself and starts to do exactly what he preaches against in the book.
Pathos is used subtlety in Proofiness, however when used, it is used passionately. In the beginning of the book, Charles Seife uses humor to make the reader laugh a little and want to continue reading. His use of irony in, “[t]his is why Potemkin numbers are so common: 78 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot,” (18) draws the reader in while adding to his point about Potemkin numbers. However, in chapter two Charles Seife starts to become more argumentative and criticize peoples, such as the scientist that connected brain tumors to NutraSweet where no connection existed (45). As the book progresses his tone becomes increasingly malignant towards others. The beginning of chapter three starts with President Nixon’s speech if Apollo 11 had failed and killed all three men on board, criticizing NASA of their carelessness for risk (67). Once Charles Seife started chapter three, his pathos took a nosedive as many readers went from invigorated with his explanations to appall with his criticisms of everything. The emotion of hatred for those that lie and cheat against the public backfired once he attacked trusted peoples, and that hate turned towards him. Later in the book, Charles Seife talks about politics and how politicians are always lying to the public; most of the educated public knows not to believe a politician with what he says at face value already. Nevertheless, he spends ten pages on Gerrymandering and how it is used to cheat by politicians (174-184). This rant, if controlled, could have been a quick explanation of the simple concept with the three images, then an explanation of how politics uses Gerrymandering, all done in half the pages he took to rant on and on over Gerry from Massachusetts and his malicious ways (174). Proofiness may be based on accurate facts, but from his argumentative tone, he loses the ethos and pathos he builds up.
Proofiness is written comparatively to a proof in math; and in doing this logos does not flow correctly. In a proof, one puts the logic and reason they plan to use down first, such as a=b, or let angle c measure to ninety degrees, then one would solve the proof with the reasoning laid out before hand. Charles Seife does the same in Proofiness, where he writes about “cherry-picking” (26) or “apples-to-oranges” (31), and describes them with small examples only to use them much later in different chapters. This set up can be confusing for some readers, having to refer back to the beginning chapter to comprehend what is happening in the last chapter. It ruined the flow of the book for any who were overwhelmed with all the meaning in the first two chapters. Not only that, but the chapters themselves seemed very indirect to each other which cut at the book’s logos; such as chapter two “Rorschach’s Demon” (39-66) jumping to “Risky Business” (67-90). Sometimes when reading it seemed that Charles Seife was just expanding his ideas to fill a book, or that he was picking species occurrences that showed proofiness for his book, and example of cherry-picking in itself. Proofiness uses facts and logic to win the argument that people do use numbers to lie all the time, yet the book’s structure pulls people from the logos, hence belittling it.
Proofiness by Charles Seife establishes ethos, pathos, and logos in its beginning, but unwinds itself as the narrative progresses. Ethos is built from Charles Seife’s great achievements in mathematics and journalism, but is demolished from his constant argumentative tone. The pathos of the novel builds hatred for the tools used to create proofiness, yet switches to displeasure for Charles Seife and his writing. The book’s logos is strong with facts and hard evidence of when people used proofiness, however his use of proofiness undermines his argument and labels it void of true reason without the other side. Charles Seife wrote Proofiness with the mindset to make it known people are lied to, but under the surface of that truth all else becomes less clear.