Baloney Detection Kit

Carl Sagan's
Baloney Detection Kit
Courtesy of The Planetary Society Australian Volunteers.)

Based on the book
"The Demon Haunted World:
Science as a Candle in the Dark"
published by Headline, 1996.
The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:

  1. Wherever possible, there must be independent confirmation of the facts.
  2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
  3. Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").
  4. Spin more than one hypothesis --don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
  5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
  6. Quantify, wherever possible.
  7. If there is a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work.
  8. "Occam's razor" --if there are two hypothesis that explain the data equally well, choose the simpler.
  9. Ask whether the hypothesis can, at least in principle, be falsified (shown to be false by some unambiguous test). In other words, it is testable? Can others duplicate the experiment and get the same result?
Additional issues are:
  • Conduct control experiments --especially "double blind" experiments where the person taking measurements is not aware of the test and control subjects.
  • Check for confounding factors --separate the variables.
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    Common Fallacies of logic and rhetoric:
    1. Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
    2. Argument from "authority".
    3. Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavorable" decision).
    4. Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
    5. Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).
    6. Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
    7. Observational selection (A subconscious bias toward counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
    8. Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes (--altho a test that achieves statistical relevance in a small number does show validity).
    9. Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below-average intelligence!)
    10. Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").
    11. Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down. See next...
    12. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "It happened after, so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect. ("Correlation does not imply causation")
    13. Meaningless question ("What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?")
    14. Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).
    15. Short-term v. long-term - a subset of Excluded Middle ("Why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").
    16. Slippery slope --a subset of Excluded Middle-- unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
    17. Confusion of correlation and causation.
    18. Straw man --caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack.
    19. Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
    20. Weasel words - for example, use of euphemisms for war such as "police action" to get around limitations on Presidential powers. "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public."

    . . . . Above all --read the book!

    JKH: To search for spiritual and metaphysical truth is a loser's game. The first two terms are of opinion, the third suggests that only one opinion is correct. Furthermore, the first two seek an answer in an area that can have no concrete facts, therefore no "truth". Cul-de-sac. Double-bind. Schizophrenogenic!

    "Hootmagundy", of the Yahoo Skeptics Club, on how to do "cold-reading" & convince people you can mind-read:

    It's chiefly a matter of how you frame your patter with your target audience. Basically, you toss out general guesses, and then make them less general and more specific as you zero in on one of the more responsive, info giving audience members.
    . . "I sense that someone here has lost a loved one recently, yes?" (Somebody will have lost a loved one 'recently', a vague term which could mean ten minutes ot ten months. When someone responds 'yes!', you zero in on him/her)
    . . "I am SO sorry, it was painful for you, yes?"
    (Well duh. This is ingraciating butt-kissing for obvious reasons).
    . . "I sense that it was some sort of problem with the head..(hesitate just a second, if no 'hit' on head, go immediately to..), "No! The chest area! Yes, the chest area (audience member is nodding enthusiastically, starting to cry), the heart gave out, yes? I have it now. It was the heart..." And so on.

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