Baloney detection kit

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Historical thinking

Ved FELIX GRAHAM BEVAN

Karl Popper defining scientific theory

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chapter3. SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY

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Writing an Essay

Ved 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."