Baloney detection kit

Mere som dette

Sample Mind Map

af PATRICIA FONSECA

scientific thinking

af soha osman

Darwin's Evolution

af christine naguib

Writing an Essay

af Wendy Melnick

Baloney Detection Kit.

What Not to do (Fallacies)

• weasel words

• suppressed evidence,

• straw man

• confusion of correlation and causation

• slippery slope

• short-term vs. long-term

• excluded middle, or false dichotomy

• meaningless question

• post hoc, ergo propter hoc

• non sequitur

• inconsistency

• misunderstanding of the nature of statistics

• statistics of small numbers

• observational selection

• begging the question

• special pleading

• appeal to ignorance

• argument from adverse consequences

• argument from authority

• ad hominem

Tools for Skeptical thinking

• Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified

• Occam's Razor

• If there's a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work

• Quantify

• Not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours

• Spin more than one hypothesis

• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence

• Arguments from authority carry little weight

• Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the "facts."