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Baloney Detection kit
  1. Independent confirmation if possible
  2. Encourage debate by knowledgeable proponents
  3. Distrust "argument from authority"
  4. Spin more than one hypothesis, and try and discover what tests can distinguish them
  5. Quantify, if possible
  6. Remember every link in the chain must work, including the premise
  7. Use Occams razor, choose simplest hypothesis if two fit the data the same
  8. Check if hypothesis can be falsified

Common fallacies
  1. Ad Hominem (Latin for 'to the man') attacking arguer not argument
  2. Argument from authority
  3. Argument from adverse consequences
  4. Appeal to ignorance, lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.
  5. Special pleading.
  6. Begging the question, or assuming the answer
  7. Observational selection, or forgetting the misses
  8. Statistics of small numbers
  9. Misundestanding nature of statistics
  10. Inconsistency
  11. Non-sequiter (Latin for 'it doesn't follow)
  12. Post hoc ergo propetor hoc (Latin for 'It happened after therefore it was caused by')
  13. Meaningless question
  14. Excluded middle, or false dichotomy
  15. Short term Versus long term
  16. Slippery slope
  17. Confusion of correlation and causation
  18. Strawman
  19. Supressed evidence
  20. Weasel words or euphemisms
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