Michael “Skeptic” Shermer in Scientific American:Baloney Detection — hints to distinguish science from pseudo-science:
- How reliable is the source of the claim?
- Does this source often make similar claims?
- Have the claims been verified by another source?
- How does the claim fit with what we know about how the world works?
- Has anyone gone out of the way to disprove the claim, or has only supportive evidence been sought?
And in part II:
- Does the preponderance of evidence point to the claimant’s conclusion or to a different one?
- Is the claimant employing the accepted rules of reason and tools of research, or have these been abandoned in favor of others that lead to the desired conclusion?
- Is the claimant providing an explanation for the observed phenomena or merely denying the existing explanation?
- If the claimant proffers a new explanation, does it account for as many phenomena as the old explanation did?
- Do the claimant’s personal beliefs and biases drive the conclusions, or vice versa?
