In this digital era, anything can be faked; followers, news, experts, emails, and so on. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the faker. It turns out that these issues were addressed back in 1996, by Carl Sagan, the world-famous astronomer. His context was UFOs, but his formula for separating facts from fiction is even more applicable today. He called his 9-step process “The Fine Art of Baloney Detection” and described it in his best-selling book, The Demon-Haunted World. Here is a summary:
- Whenever possible, there must be independent confirmation of the “facts”
- Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents
- Do not overweight arguments from so-called authorities
- Spin more than one hypothesis for the evidence
- Try not to get too attached to your own hypothesis
- Quantify competing hypotheses
- If using a chained argument, every link must work
- Occam’s Razor: choose the simpler of two hypotheses
- Can the hypothesis be tested?
Keep this list in mind when you are confronted with information that may have significant consequences for you.
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