Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Baloney Detection Kit

I wish this video could be shown to every high school student in the world:





The Ten Questions to detect Baloney


1. How reliable is the source of the claim?


2. Does the source make similar claims?


3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?


4. Does this fit with the way the world works?


5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?


6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?


7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?


8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?


9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?


10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?



I also wish that the video could be played for Church congregations (ideally, right after the sermon).

1 comments:

CKDC said...

#7 is a real kicker.

I prefer this approach to the bullshit test:

http://www.startbreakingfree.com/504/how-to-tell-whats-bullshit-and-whats-true-part-1/

In particular, number 3.

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