Baloney Detection Kit

Available from Michael Shermer here.

Comments

Kosh3 said…

Hrm too many steps, will not be memetically successful.

July 2, 2009 at 12:15 AM

M. Tully said…

"Hrm too many steps, will not be memetically successful."

Brilliant point. But then again, isn't that our challenge?

How do we do that? What is the way to make the baloney detection kit accessible?

What an incredibly great question for philosophers and educators to take up. I hear a guy named Dewey had some ideas, but they never got fully accepted.

Any improvements out there based on recent and more comprehensive data?

July 2, 2009 at 3:03 AM

Kosh3 said…

"How do we do that? What is the way to make the baloney detection kit accessible?"

Go for economy. For example, Schick and Vaugn's SEARCH formula is 6 steps simpler, and has the advantage of an acronym.

_S_tate the claim
_E_xamine the evidence
consider _A_lternatives
_R_ate, according to the _C_riteria of adequacy, each _H_ypothesis.

July 2, 2009 at 3:29 AM

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