Michael Shermer’s Baloney Detection Kit

Michael Shermer from Skeptic Magazine (and columnist in SciAm) took Carl Sagan’s idea that we need a Boloney Detection Kit to sift through all the boloney out there, and proposed this solution.

The summary of it is as follows:

1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
2. Does the source make similar claims?
3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
4. Does this fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs driving their claim?