Based on his book "The Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark"
The following are suggested as tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent arguments:
- Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts
- Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
- Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").
- Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
- Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
- Quantify, wherever possible.
- If there is a chain of argument every link in the chain must work.
- "Occam's razor" - if there are two hypothesis that explain the data equally well choose the simpler.
- 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.
Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric
- Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
- Argument from "authority".
- Argument from adverse consequences (putting pressure on the decision maker by pointing out dire consequences of an "unfavourable" decision).
- Appeal to ignorance (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).
- Special pleading (typically referring to god's will).
- Begging the question (assuming an answer in the way the question is phrased).
- Observational selection (counting the hits and forgetting the misses).
- Statistics of small numbers (such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes).
- Misunderstanding the nature of statistics (President Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence!)
- Inconsistency (e.g. military expenditures based on worst case scenarios but scientific projections on environmental dangers thriftily ignored because they are not "proved").
- Non sequitur - "it does not follow" - the logic falls down.
- Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - "it happened after so it was caused by" - confusion of cause and effect.
- Meaningless question ("what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?).
- Excluded middle - considering only the two extremes in a range of possibilities (making the "other side" look worse than it really is).
- Short-term v. long-term - a subset of excluded middle ("why pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?").
- Slippery slope - a subset of excluded middle - unwarranted extrapolation of the effects (give an inch and they will take a mile).
- Confusion of correlation and causation.
- Straw man - caricaturing (or stereotyping) a position to make it easier to attack..
- Suppressed evidence or half-truths.
- 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 - get the book!
amazon.com |
Carl Sagan The Demon Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark |
|
Carl Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing, and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides a 'baloney detection kit' for thinking through political, social, religious, and other issues." |
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| ~ Pick up a copy for a friend! ~ | |
More books:
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: A Search for Who We Are, by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (Contributor)
"Dazzling...a feast. Absorbing and elegantly written, it tells of the
origins of life on earth, describes its variety and character, and culminates in a
discussion of human nature and the complex traces of humankind's
evolutionary past...it is an amazing story masterfully told."
"Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great reading adventure, offering his vivid
and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human
intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends--and their amazing
links to recent discoveries. A history of the human brain from the big
bang, fifteen billion years ago, to the day before yesterday...It's a
delight."
"The best-selling science book ever published in the England language,
Cosmos is a magnificent overview of the past, present, and future of
science. Brilliant and provocative, it traces today's knowledge and scientific
methods to their historical roots, blending science and philosophy in a wholly
energetic and irresistible way. A companion volume to a popular television series and
seventy-week New York Times bestseller places fifteen billion years of
evolution in an accessible format."
"Carl Sagan's last work seems to be the most powerful yet. He takes an
unabashed look at virtually every aspect of human existence and its impact
on the home planet. It a philosophical work that transcends the paradigms
of the past, dropping the excuses for excess such as patriotism, progress,
and religion."
The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins
"Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson,
and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we
see ourselves and the world with the publication of The Selfish Gene.
Suppose, instead of thinking about organisms using genes to reproduce
themselves, as we had since Mendel's work was rediscovered, we turn
it around and imagine that 'our' genes build and maintain us in order to
make more genes. That simple reversal seems to answer many puzzlers
which had stumped scientists for years, and we haven't thought of
evolution in the same way since."
"Patiently and lucidly, this Los Angeles Times Book Award and Royal
Society of Literature Heinemann Prize winner identifies the aspects of
the theory of evolution that people find hard to believe and removes the
barriers to credibility one by one. As readable and vigorous a defense
of Darwinism as has been published since 1859. A vigorous and readable
defense of Darwinism which leaps effortlessly from the primeval soup to
long rows of taxonomy. Deep enough to be valuable to biologists, yet
simple and well-written so as to appeal to a mass audience."
Still more books...
Further resources:
Less serious sites:
- Journal of Irreproducible Results
- The Annals of Improbable
Research. (with the Ignobel Awards)
Prepared by Michael Paine
27 January 1998.
This page was stolen from xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html