Seven warning signs of bogus science

Pseudoscience does have that toxic fragrance …

Here’s a handy little guide that ought to be spread around:

1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

Sounds like a very decent set of rules to follow to know how to distinguish between actual science and research, and pseudoscientific nonsense. If someone comes up with a Fabulous Discovery^TM that they can’t really explain, that seems to have appeared out of thin air, that can’t be substantiated in any real, scientifically credible manner, and that first appeared in the media as opposed to any research institute or journal … well, that’s what you might call a “damning situation”, methinks.

More people should have these guidelines at hand at any point in time. Most of us (being skeptics and critical thinkers) already have a built-in bullshit detector, but most of the common masses don’t really have any way of knowing when they’re being swooped up in some pseudoscientific bullshit, and so it’d be quite swell to have a little detection guide at hand.