The Blog of Harald

Robert L. Park has written The Seven Warning Signs of Bogus Science:

bq. I began this list of warning signs to help federal judges detect scientific nonsense. But as I finished the list, I realized that in our increasingly technological society, spotting voodoo science is a skill that every citizen should develop.

The list:

# The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
# The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
# The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
# Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
# The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
# The discoverer has worked in isolation.
# The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.