The Baloney Detection Kit

[quadz]

Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine presents a ten point Baloney Detection Kit to aid in identifying crackpot theories and pseudoscience:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU

1. How reliable is the source of the claim?  (...are the errors biased in one direction, slanting toward a particular belief?)

2. Does the source make similar claims?  ("...for example, New Age people, the people that believe in spirituality and ghosts and haunted houses and ghosts and all this, they believe the whole thing - they tend to be more susceptible to magical thinking [...] rather than following the data."  Another example: global warming is false, and evolution is false, and the big bang is false, and...)

3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?  (..."You make a bold claim, somebody else has to be able to go out and test it.")

4. Does this fit with the way the world works?  (...if the Egyptians didn't build the pyramids, archaeological digs should produce artifacts from this other culture, instead of producing Egyptian artifacts dated to Egyptian times indicating Egyptian construction.)

5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?  (..."It's one thing to pile up a bunch evidence, go, 'Look I have this radical new idea. Here's my arguments in support of it.' OK, interesting - but, what are the counter-arguments? Have you thought about that? What else could be explaining this?")

6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?  (..."Anybody can make a claim and then pile up a few points in favor of it. The question is: what about all the other evidence? Is it also leaning toward this? Or is it leaning toward that other theory that you're trying to challenge?")

7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?  (...Example: SETI vs. UFOlogy...)

8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?  (..."Is the claimant providing positive evidence in favor of their theory? Or just denying evidence for the other theory? It's one thing to just compile a list of problems with the other guy's theory. ... So you have to actually have positive evidence in favor of your contrary theory.")

9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?  (..."Anybody can find a few anomalies that the current prevailing theory doesn't seem to account for. In other words, in science it's OK to say, 'I don't know.' You have a few anomalies, a few mysteries, and so on... But what pseudo-scientists tend to do, is they tend to take those few handful of mysteries, and say, well, that's my whole new theory. ...But the question is, can this new theory explain all the other things [that are currently explained by the theory it is attempting to supercede?]")

10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?  (..."Do the personal beliefs and ideologies and world-view of the person making the claim - is that what's driving their research, or is it the other way around? ... So in science, at some point, you have to remove politics and ideology and say: WHAT IS THE DATA?")

[jägermonsta]

A lot of these 'questions' are just common sense thinking. You don't believe something right off the bat... these questions or questions like these run through your head first. I suppose it becomes a matter of how many of them make it through ones head then others before making or believing a claim.

[ReCycled]

This video is useful, as well, in explaining science and those who stick to their own biases...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h9XntsSEro

[Th0m@s29]

Meh maybe or maybe not.

[|iR|Focalor]

Meh maybe or maybe not.

Maybe you're not legally retarded.

Maybe you are.

No.

You are definitely retarded.

Hooray for the scientific method!

edit: I saw this picture and immediately thought of YOU. 

[fdrjk]

Why even fucking bother? He's not even gonna reply...

[reaper]

("...for example, New Age people, the people that believe in spirituality and ghosts and haunted houses and ghosts and all this, they believe the whole thing - they tend to be more susceptible to magical thinking [...] rather than following the data."  Another example: global warming is false, and evolution is false, and the big bang is false, and...)

generally global warming is considered some kind of catastrophic problem, when there are 1) known fixes and 2) the natural factors are unknown.  it seems magical to me people know the outcome and the magnitude of the problem.

[|iR|Focalor]

People seem to be divided on the issue of global warming. I have no doubt that releasing certain compounds into the atmosphere can have negative effects on the ozone. But if the ice at the top of the globe is supposedly melting at such a fast pace, I don't see how the earth could possibly be getting warmer. I was under the impression that if ice were to melt that it would probably be causing an awful lot of the water to evaporate and thus have a cooling effect. I don't know a ton about science, but I know what I can see and observe in person. I've worked in the HVAC industry long enough to personally see and understand the effects of evaporation on temperature. It seems to me that water would be the stabilizing factor. If the temperature of the earth is rising enough to make ice melt quickly, it should also be plenty high enough to make water vaporize which would have a cooling effect. That vaporized water would come down as more rain. There would be much less droughts across the globe, yet we still never seem to get enough rain in the summer where I live.

[reaper]

get your own grocery bags, that'll fix it

 

[|iR|Focalor]

Nah, my infant prefers to play with the plastic ones in his crib.

[fdrjk]

lul

[reaper]

People seem to be divided on the issue of global warming. I have no doubt that releasing certain compounds into the atmosphere can have negative effects on the ozone. But if the ice at the top of the globe is supposedly melting at such a fast pace, I don't see how the earth could possibly be getting warmer. I was under the impression that if ice were to melt that it would probably be causing an awful lot of the water to evaporate and thus have a cooling effect. I don't know a ton about science, but I know what I can see and observe in person. I've worked in the HVAC industry long enough to personally see and understand the effects of evaporation on temperature. It seems to me that water would be the stabilizing factor. If the temperature of the earth is rising enough to make ice melt quickly, it should also be plenty high enough to make water vaporize which would have a cooling effect. That vaporized water would come down as more rain. There would be much less droughts across the globe, yet we still never seem to get enough rain in the summer where I live.

Maybe the water stablizies its temperature across the whole body, and the surface area plays a part; then the reradiated energy is a larger factor we have changed, that increases temperature.

This is a complicated matter affecting everyone so I want to hear: given the predictions of variations in natural factors, this is what we need to do

What I don't want to hear is: the earth will raise in temperature 8 degrees, and we should all bring our own bags for groceries because a little change in all of us will make a big difference.  Says who when the cities are flooding and shits burning up?
..
Meanwhile the population grows
..

heck if we're gonna do something let's have a fairly known probablity in its success, and start with less people, since that matters

I take exception to all the examples in point 2

[Kami]

i ought to post sagan's baloney detection kit (as he called it) from demon haunted world sometime.  i'll grab it sometime and put it on this post for future reference.

[Th0m@s29]

I originally posted in here for the lulz. But obviously Global Warming is very real but what can ya do about it just smoke some Bud ya dig?

[fdrjk]