I found a nice little video via a thread on /. called How To Teach a Healthy Dose of Skepticism. The video itself is called Here Be Dragons – An Introduction to Critical Thinking by Brian Dunning who runs the Skeptoid podcast. The title is somewhat misleading as it is directed to critical thinking in marketing (more or less) rather than in general, but it is still worth the 30 minutes or so to watch. Oh, and it is free. Of course, you’ll want to make your own notes, but here are mine.

• With a made up concept and a few words the unknown becomes simple and satisfying
• Pseudoscience – an idea that claims to be real but is not backed by any real science / evidence
• If we don’t test / experiment we don’t learn / progress
• Common warning signs to identify pseudoscience
  • Appeal to authority – white lab coat, celebrity endorsement, mentions certification
  • Ancient wisdom – We shouldn’t care that the ancient Chinese thought something works, where is the proof that it actually works
  • Confirmation bias – When we remember ideas that match our beliefs and forget those that don’t
  • Confuse correlation with causation – Just because two events look the related they might not be
  • Red herring – Irrelevant distractions that no way address the item under discussion
  • proof by verbosity – it’s not the quantity of information, it is the quality of the information
  • Mystical energy – energy is defined as measurable work capability; anytime you hear energy being used, substitute the real definition and see if it makes any sense?
  • Suppression by authority – there is no business reason to suppress science or invention; new things make money
  • All natural – lots of natural things are harmful too and the non-harmful ones are often synthetically created to be more effective/easy to produce
  • Ideological support – good science is done in the lab, not the courts/media/blogs
• Apparently Brian sleeps with a clip-on mic?
• The Law of Large Numbers disproves ‘psychic connection’ / ‘precognition’
• There is a nice explanation of the triple-blind FDA trial
• Why do smart people think crazy things
  • Humans like the new, cool thing
  • Simple, easy answers are seductive
  • Scientific ideas are always called ‘theory’ and so subject to improvement so there is a speck of a chance that they are wrong
  • People lack the tools to think critically; which you have to seek out yourself. Pop culture will not give it to you
  • Embrace the information that meets the scrutiny of testing
  • Brian’s reading list

  Of course, you have to think critically about everything presented in the video.