Write a three-to-five page essay that applies some of Carl Sagan’s “baloney detection” methods to a popular theory that you've heard (or perhaps found on the internet). The essay is due on Sept 22. The paper should be word-processed, double-spaced, have at least one-inch margins, and have page numbers.
Some possible topics might be:
- Do Satanic cults that brainwash children and regularly commit murder exist?
- Are there still dinosaurs alive in Africa?
- Is the electric eel proof that there are things that Darwin's theory of evolution can not explain?
- Could mammoths and other extinct animals be brought back to life through cloning?
- Could megavitamins allow me to live to 140?
- Do penile enhancement pills work?
- Do dolphins have ESP?
- Are dolphins and/or whales as smart (or smarter) than humans?
- Will scientists soon be able to download a person's memories into a computer?
- Did Irish monks/ Ancient Egyptians / Chinese explorers travel to America before Columbus did?
- Are breast implants a threat to a woman's health?
- Could life survive on Mars, given that it is so cold and dry and there is so little atmosphere?
- Does all life ultimately depend on sunlight for its energy?
Baloney Detection Kit
[from Sagan]
Things to do:
- Facts must be independently confirmed whereever possible.
• Encourage substantive debate by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
• Arguments from authority carry little weight.
• Spin more than one hypothesis; consider alternative explanations.
• Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
• Quantify whenever possible.
• Every link in a chain of argument must work, not just most of them.
• Occam's razor (the simpler hypothesis is probably right).
• A hypothesis should be falsifiable, i.e., such that it could be proven wrong (in principle).
• Control experiments.
• Separate variables.
• Use double-blind methods.
- Ad hominem attacks (attacking the arguer, not the argument).
• Argument from authority.
• Argument from adverse consequences.
• Appeal to ignorance (e.g., "whatever has not been proven false must be true")
• Special pleading.
• Begging the question (a.k.a. assuming the answer)
• Observational selection (counting hits and ignoring the misses)
• Statistics of small numbers.
• Inconsistency.
• Non sequitors ("it does not follow")
• Post hoc ergo propter hoc ("It happened after, therefore it was caused by.")
• Meaningless questions.
• Excluded middle/false dichotomy
• Short-term vs. long term
• Slippery slope.
• Confusion of correlation and causation.
• Straw man.
• Suppressed evidence.
• Weasel words.