Bob's Humbug Detection Kit

In any case, it's important to be able to recognize and respond to humbug whenever you see it. To some extent, you can rely on people like myself, Penn & Teller, James Randi, Richard Dawkins, and many others who do this sort of thing to help you out. When people like us find humbug, we publicly expose it for the world to see.

However, there's just too much of it. There's no way you're ever going to be able to completely rely on any such source or sources to give you all the information on all the humbug that's out there, especially when you consider the "Spy vs. Spy" nature of this battle. We expose humbug, and the frauds just invent a new story and come back with that instead.

So it's important that you're able to detect humbug for yourself. It's also important that people should be willing to do something about it, but even if you don't join in our fight, you can at least do your part and not be a victim.

Thus, I present to you Bob's Humbug Detection Kit. This is a general purpose detection kit. I will also be featuring more specialized kits that you can use in more specific cases (for example, I'll be featuring a kit for the detection of fake psychics and the like).

Please note (and this is very important): I'm not providing a fully formed kit. I'm providing you with the means to build your own Humbug Detection Kit. I'm asking you, as you read along, to put these tools (and any of your own that you'd like to add) to your own metaphorical toolbox.

Now let's get down to it. Have you got your toolbox (which is actually just your own brain) ready? Good. I have many tools to fill it with.

Skepticism

Your own skepticism is probably the best tool to keep in the kit. Humans are naturally skeptical. Unfortunately, too many of us abandon this skepticism in favor of comforting fantasies, half-truths, or easy solutions.

There's a popular misconception that skeptics are the same thing as cynics. This is untrue. A cynic is one whose outlook is uncharacteristically negative. A skeptic is one who says we shouldn't blindly accept anything without evidence, no matter how impressive or comforting it may sound.

There's another misconception that shows its ugly face all too often. This is that skeptics are closed-minded and refuse to accept any new ideas. Au contraire! Skeptics are not closed-minded. For the most part, we're fairly open-minded people. We just recognize that, as Professor Dawkins points out: "There's this thing called being so open-minded your brains drop out."

The key to skepticism is a little word called "evidence."

While it would be incredibly stupid to automatically dismiss any new ideas just because they don't mesh with the old ideas (if this were what we did, where would scientific progress be?), it's equally stupid to automatically accept new ideas without evidence.

I think it takes an incredibly open mind to accept something so amazingly weird as Quantum theory. It is accepted by science because it is supported by evidence.

Whenever someone makes a claim, don't automatically dismiss it. But don't accept it either. Remain skeptical and demand evidence. Always remember that the burden of proof is on whoever makes the claim. If they can't provide the evidence, it's not science and shouldn't be accepted.

If they do offer some evidence, this is where the scientific method comes in. The claim and the evidence should be carefully examined to see if they really do work together. If they do, you can move on from there in your quest to find the truth (remembering always that even if you want to prove something is true, you always need to try your hardest to falsify it).

Once evidence is presented, there are some tools we should add to your kit to help you examine that evidence.

Independent Confirmation

Whenever possible, you should always strive for independent confirmation of the facts. When examining the supposed evidence of many fakes, you'll quickly discover that the evidence they present is a complete fabrication. It's necessary to have an independent source confirm as much of their evidence as possible.

For example, in the 1980s, James Randi staged a hoax with a young performance artist and Australia's 60 MINUTES. The purpose of this was to test the humbug detection skills of the media. They failed miserably, largely because they didn't look for independent confirmation.

The story fed to the media by Randi and his team was deliberately full of holes, which would become obvious with any degree of an attempt at seeking independent confirmation. For instance, their "psychic" performance artist was said to have appeared on a radio program in the United States. The radio station they mentioned never even existed. Had the media sought independent confirmation of this radio appearance, they would have discovered this and the hoax would have been uncovered.

(It's necessary to point out that Randi's team never intended to perpetuate this hoax. Immediately following the experiment, they came forward with the truth about what they'd been doing, and never took any money from the people they'd tricked.)

Open Debate

None of us knows everything. When offered a story to explain some claim, there may be false information in it. However, this may be technical information, and you might not be able to detect it yourself. Therefore, whenever possible, it's important to have open debate between expert proponents of all sides.

When I mention open debate, I don't mean the sort of debate featured on cable news shows. Those are usually highly edited, or biased. Or even if they're completely fair, time limitations prevent the experts from presenting their ideas as anything more than short sound bites.

Authorities Can Be Wrong

Argument from authority is always shaky at best, because authorities can make mistakes. For instance, many highly respected physicists have been fooled by the simplest of magician's tricks. They are certainly authority figures (and they may seem to be an authority in the matter at hand), but their area of expertise is limited.

Consider Multiple Hypotheses

It's always a good idea to consider multiple hypotheses when examining any claim or phenomenon. And make sure you consider them equally, until they can be confirmed or falsified. By the same token, you don't want to get too attached to any single hypothesis, because it might not be the correct one.

Chain of Argument

Sometimes the explanation for a phenomenon may come in the form of a chain of argument. Remember that if this is true, ALL points in the chain must be accurate, not just most of them. If one link fails, the entire chain does.

Occam's Razor

Occam's Razor is another one of our favorite tools. I'm confident you'll be using it a lot. Put simply, Occam's Razor states that, all else being equal, the simplest answer is usually the correct one.

If someone claims that they can bend spoons by psychic means, and James Randi demonstrates that it can be done with trickery, whose explanation is the simplest? Randi's of course. That doesn't necessarily prove that the psychic isn't using some supernatural power, but it does mean that they have to PROVE that they are using some supernatural power.

Falsify!

No matter how much you may like a hypothesis; no matter how much you want it to be true, your goal must be to falsify. That's one of the best ways to confirm something. If you make every imaginable attempt to falsify a hypothesis and fail to do so, that's fairly good evidence that there might actually be something to this.

Of course, you must be certain that you make every possible attempt to falsify the hypothesis. And even then, it's not confirmed. You still need to do more work. But by the time you get that far, you're outside the scope of this kit, and need to use a completely different kit to finish your research.

Fallacies

There are a lot of fallacies that may be used in defense of an idea. The more of them you know, the better equipped you'll be to detect the humbug. So you should put a thorough knowledge of logical fallacies in your kit. Here are some to get you started:

AD HOMINEM: Attacking the man, rather than the idea. I can't count the number of times I've presented an idea and, instead of trying to refute the idea, my opponents have just called me fat and thought that would be the end of it.

ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY: Just because an authority says something doesn't automatically make it true. The opinions of authorities may lend credibility to an idea, but they do not constitute proof.

SCARE TACTICS: Also known as an argument from adverse consequences. This is a claim that something must be true, because there would be negative consequences if it were false (ie., god must exist because a godless society would be immoral).

APPEAL TO IGNORANCE: This is the idea that anything not proven false must be true and vice versa. Of course, this isn't true either way. HOWEVER, if something is not proven true, though we shouldn't necessarily dismiss it as false, neither should we blindly accept it without evidence.

SPECIAL PLEADING: This is accepting arguments that support your position, but ignoring or disallowing those that do not. For example, a "psychic" claiming that the presence of skeptics makes his powers fail is a case of special pleading.

BEGGING THE QUESTION: A form of circular logic. In this case, the claim in question is one of the assumptions ("We need the death penalty to discourage violent crime," is a common example. It assumes that the death penalty discourages violent crime).

STOLEN CONCEPT: Related to begging the question. In this case, you assume something is true in order to debunk it. An example would be trying to prove you don't exist (when your existence is required for you to be making such a stupid claim in the first place).

SELECTIVE OBSERVATION: Counting the hits and forgetting the misses, in other words. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

MISUNDERSTANDING OF STATISTICS: I don't have time to cover this nearly as completely as it deserves in this kit. Just know that people who don't understand statistics will use them improperly. I'll make another kit that will help you deal with this.

NON SEQUITUR: Literally, "it doesn't follow." Such as claiming that your religion is comforting to many people, therefore, it must be true.

POST HOC, ERGO PROPTER HOC: Literally, "it happened after, therefore it was caused by."

CONFUSION OF CORRELATION AND CAUSATION: Just because there is correlation between two things or ideas does not mean one caused the other. An example I've heard a few times is this: "When hot chocolate sales go up, street crime goes down; therefore, hot chocolate prevents street crime." This is a confusion of correlation and causation. There is correlation because both have a common, separate, cause: cold weather. When it's cold, there are less people on the streets to commit the crimes, and the hot chocolate sales go up.

EXCLUDED MIDDLE: This ignores any middle ground, examining only the extremes. Examples include considering only atheism and fundamentalism and not the religious moderates, or assuming that you're either a loud patriot or a treasonous bastard and ignoring those who are indifferent or love their country but not what their government is doing.

SLIPPERY SLOPE: The idea that if something is allowed to a certain degree, it will go down a "slippery slope" and reach some horrible extreme.

STRAW MAN: The creation of an exaggerated version of your opponent so you can more easily debunk his claims. A common example is the creationist idea that monkeys gave birth to humans.

SUPRESSED EVIDENCE: Also known as an argument from half-truth. This is very difficult to detect, because it is simply the omission of some evidence. A popular example is an amazingly accurate prophecy of the assassination attempt on Reagan shown on TV. No one seemed to ask the question: was it recorded before or after? In fact, it was recorded after.

WEASEL WORDS: This is a manipulation of the language or a changing of the titles. For example, Constitutionally, Presidents are not allowed to declare war. So instead, they conduct "police actions." See also George Orwell's novel 1984 for some interesting examples.

LOGIC REVERSAL: I'll illustrate by example. "All people whose surname begins with 'Mac' are of Scottish ancestry. My friend is of Scottish ancestry; therefore, his surname begins with 'Mac." Actually, his surname is Campbell.

OUTDATED INFORMATION: It's not uncommon for people to use information that was valid at one time, but isn't anymore. Watch the dates carefully.

APPEAL TO ANONYMOUS AUTHORITY: "Experts say," "scientists say," or "they say." These are examples of anonymous authority. Since no specific individuals or groups are listed, it's difficult to verify.

APPEAL TO COINCIDENCE: Asserting that something is the result of chance. Coincidences do happen, but not everything is a coincidence. More proof is needed to confirm or falsify such claims.

APPEAL TO COMPLEXITY: If the arguer doesn't understand a topic, he might say that nobody understands it. The obvious implication is that his opinion is as good as anybody's. There may be some truth to the statement that no one fully understands Quantum theory, but that doesn't mean my opinion is on par with a physicist's.

APPEAL TO FORCE: Similar to AD HOMINEM. However, instead of attacking an opponent's character, you're threatening him with a lawsuit or violence (or, in the case of a religious debate, eternal damnation). Obviously, this doesn't challenge the validity of his arguments.

APPEAL TO SYMPATHY: An attempt to generate pity or sympathetic feelings, instead of discussing the facts.

APPEAL TO WIDESPREAD BELIEF: Using, as evidence for a claim, the fact that many people believe it. "Can all those millions of people be wrong?" Well, yes they can! This is only valid when discussing social conventions. It's interesting that this argument was used in the past to justify slavery.

ARGUMENT BY EMOTIVE LANGUAGE: Related to WEASEL WORDS and APPEAL TO SYMPATHY. This is using emotionally loaded language to sway people's opinions. Sometimes a variation of this is known as an "APPEAL TO FLAG AND FAMILY."

AGRUMENT BY PERSONAL CHARM: Getting the audience to like you goes a long way. Unfortunately, it can also weaken their humbug detection kits. Magicians use this all the time when misdirection is necessary.

FAILURE TO ASSERT: When people don't want to get stuck if they're proven wrong, they tend to use words like "may," "might," and "possibly" a lot.

INCONSISTENCY: "The declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union is a result of the failures of communism." Yet, "The high infant mortality rate in the United States is not due to a failure of capitalism." Incidentally, neither is likely true. Political philosophy has nothing to do with natural life expectancy.

ARGUMENT BY LAZINESS: You're more likely to see this in hate mail than in any "serious" debate. It's simply the act of asserting your opinion without bothering to study the issue at all. On second thought, you probably will see it in serious debates. Ever listen to politicians?

FALSE COMPROMISE: The idea that if there are two extremes, the truth must be in the middle. This may be true. On the other hand, one side might just be wrong.

ARGUMENT BY PIGHEADDEDNESS: Refusing to accept something, no matter how compelling the evidence. There are still people who think the Earth is flat, you know…

ARGUMENT BY QUESTION: Generally, it's much more difficult and takes much longer to answer a question than to ask it. So, particularly if you're on a time limit, asking a difficult question (even if it has a perfectly good answer) may appear to make your opponent look foolish. For example, let's imagine we're on a cable news show, debating a creationist. He asks: "How can something as complex as even a single living cell have arisen due to random chance?" Now, we have about thirty seconds to answer. Try explaining abiogenesis or Darwinian natural selection in thirty seconds.

ARGUMENT BY RHETORICAL QUESTION: Ever wonder why the pollsters get such different responses to similar questions? It's all in how the question is asked. For example, if you ask someone if they want higher taxes, they'll say no. If you ask them if they would support a tax increase to pay for education or some important social service, they'll generally say yes. Same question, different answers because of changes in wording.

LOADED QUESTION: "Do you still beat your wife?" That's a loaded question. Do I say that I do still beat my wife or that I don't still beat my wife? I can't answer. I've never beaten my wife. I don't have a wife. I've never been married!

FALLACY OF THE GENERAL RULE: Assuming that if something is true "in general," that it must be true in every possible case. For instance, "all chairs have four legs." In general, chairs have four legs. But rocking chairs have none. Some have only three. Some, which sit on a post rather than legs, could be said to have one leg.

OVERSIMPLIFICATION: As Einstein pointed out, things should be made as simple as possible but no simpler. Indeed, there are some issues that are just too complex to express in a witty sound bite.

ARGUMENT TO THE FUTURE: The idea that evidence will eventually be discovered to support your claim. Yeah? Then come back when you find it.

COMMON SENSE: I thought long and hard before deciding to include this here. Common sense is not necessarily a fallacy. The fallacy is assuming that there is such a thing as common sense. Really, common sense is just a collection of beliefs which we hold to be true, based on our culture and early experiences. As Einstein put it: "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."

CHANGING THE GOALS: An arguer may continually change the goals, making it easier or more difficult to prove a point. In some situations this may be fair (ie., starting with simple questions and moving on to more difficult ones later) but often it's not.

STATEMENT OF CONVERSION: Not necessarily a fallacy, but could be a misdirection tactic. For instance, many creationists say they "used to believe in evolution." The implication is that now they're better informed and have changed their minds. Of course, if you read their books, it becomes clear that they either never had any knowledge of evolution, or they're lying to sell more books. On the other hand, there are many atheists who say they used to be Christians. This may be a similar tactic, but it seems to be true more often. Many atheists (myself included), used to be Christians, and have a decent understanding of the Christian faith.

I know that's a long list. You might not be able to remember all of those by name. That's okay. As long as you're able to spot a fallacy when you see it, you're doing alright by me.

I would like to take this opportunity to make a distinction between a fallacy and rhetoric. While rhetoric may include a logical fallacy (I should hope it doesn't), I don't necessarily fault it, as long as the claim may be logically defended. In other words, using a slogan to help someone remember a point is fine, as long as you do have real reasons for making that point in the first place.

Example: "Taxation is theft" is a perfect example of oversimplification. If that's the best argument you have, we need to talk. But if you're just trying to make someone remember your opposition to taxation (and if you have good arguments to defend your position), there's nothing wrong with putting that slogan on a protest banner.

The Scientific Method

Science is always changing. However the scientific method is a very solid, time-honored method of human learning. Put simply, it's a method of trial and error.

We include it in our kits because it's the only way to sort out the facts from the humbug (matters of opinion such as politics are excluded from that statement to a certain degree, but not completely).

There are five basic steps in the scientific method.

1) Observe a phenomenon.
2) Develop a hypothesis.
3) Test the hypothesis.
4) Refine the hypothesis.
5) Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the hypothesis fits the phenomenon.

Let's look at these a little more closely.

1) Observing a phenomenon is the simplest part. To illustrate by example, let's say the phenomenon we're observing is a psychic who claims he can bend spoons by some supernatural means.

2) Now we need to develop a hypothesis. There are two very broad possibilities we should consider: that he has these genuine powers; and that he is using trickery to achieve this effect. Occam's Razor tells us we should seek the simplest possible answer, so we'll say he's using trickery. We come up with a means he might use trickery.

3, 4, 5) To test the hypothesis, we decide if our method of trickery would work. If so, great. We're done. If not, we refine it, find another method of trickery to test and so on. Eventually, we may find a method of trickery that fits the phenomenon, and we're done. If no trickery can be found, we may refine our hypothesis to assume he has genuine powers and proceed to test this idea.

That should give you a good start on your own humbug detection kit. By all means, please add your own tools as you discover them. As I already mentioned, in the near future, I'll also be featuring more specialized kits for the detection of specific types of humbug.