How to Tell Science from Pseudoscience
Always strive to keep an open mind - but not so open that your brains fall out!
--Groucho Marx
Peer review
warning: occasionally fails. e.g.
Andrew Wakefield links
MMR vaccines and autism (later retracted by The Lancet)
Columbia Miracle Study (not yet retracted)
Accreditation
warning: occasionally fails. e.g. a tenured professor at an accredited university and a Nobel laureate deny that HIV causes AIDS. The latter also denies global warming, but does believe in astrology.
(Thermometers are not the only things graduated with degrees that can crack.)
Expert Consensus
(Non-expert opinion is irrelevant)
If 97% of published climate scientists say that anthropogenic climate change
is real, it probably is.
If every Ph.D. biologist and biochemist on the planet except two say that
Intelligent Design Creationism is not science, then ID is probably not
science.
Be ready to change your mind
skeptic - reserve judgment until there is sufficient evidence.
denier - stick to preconceived idea regardless of the evidence.
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