The Baloney Detection Kit

Just in case you're unfamiliar with Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit", the Richard Dawkins Foundation has created a video where Michael Shermer takes us through the steps to thinking skeptically and critically about pseudo scientific claims. I encourage everybody to watch it, it's a step in the right direction when it comes to analysing evidence, and debunking the "bunk".



THE TEN QUESTIONS
How reliable is the source of the claim?
Does the source make similar claims?
Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
Does this fit with the way the world works?
Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
Are personal beliefs driving the claim?

Another Shermer Plug

Due to a lack of having anything to write down with any substance, I've decided to post a new Shermer video I found in my YouTube Feeds.

This is much more for fun, and is a tad bit less interesting than the last one I posted (about the spoon bending), but perhaps someone might enjoy this simple trick. 

And perhaps help me figure out how the trick could be done on the streets. And don't tell me it's magic. 

Bending spoons, and all that.

A few days ago, I watched a video created by Michael Shermer (of the Skeptic Society) about spoon bending. Now, he didn't bend spoons with his mind. Instead, he used a bit of science.

But, with a little bit of ignorance on the part of the observer, it seems easy to see how one can be fooled into believing that physic powers are behind this phenomenon. 

I can only hope Shermer does more videos like this that explain away a lot of pseudoscience and magical thinking.