Crap Detection

    Shermer's Boundary Detection Kit

    1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
    2. Has the source often made similar claims?
    3. Have the claims been verified by another source?
    4. How does this fit with what we know about the world and how it works?
    5. Has anyone, including and especially the claimant, gone out of the way to disprove the claim, or has only confirmatory evidence been sought?
    6. In the absence of clearly defined proof, does the preponderance of evidence converge to the claimant's conclusion, or a different one?
    7. Is the claimant employing the accepted rules of reason and tools of research, or have those been abandoned in favour of others that lead to the desired conclusion?
    8. Has the claimant provided a different explanation for the observed phenomena, or is it strictly a process of denying the existing explanation?
    9. If the claimant has proferred a new explanation, does it account for as many phenomena as the old explanation?
    10. Do the claimant's personal beliefs and biases drive the conclusion, or vice versa?

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