Top 5 Concepts for the Ungullible Mind

Before critically examining our first topics on gullibility, I want to discuss some basic concepts which form the basis for ungullibleness. If you want to improve your ungullibleness, it is vital that you begin to understand these points, even if you don't initially agree with them.

#1 People are stupid
And, yes, I do mean the all-inclusive "people." You. Me. Einstein. Everyone. Humans are extremely clever when compared with the rest of the animal kingdom. We love to sit back and admire our position atop the intellectual tree. But we aren't as smart as we like to think. We frequently confuse correlation with causation (e.g. I danced. It rained. Therefore rain dancing causes rain.) We allow our emotions to override evidence. We confuse what we want to be as evidence for it being (e.g. "ABC must be true, because otherwise 'bad thing' XYZ would be true."). We have subconscious biases. We become emotionally invested in our beliefs. We hold on with dear life to anything that remotely appears to support these pre-existing beliefs, and we frequently disregard, ignore, or are blinded to anything contrary to them, causing us to become more entrenched in them. We are guilty of so many logical fallacies that philosophers and scientists have had to study and categorized them as a method for recognizing and avoiding them. As a result, we have difficulty changing our mind about our beliefs, even when faced with new evidence to the contrary.
The Main Point: You must learn to not place too much trust in personal experiences, even when its your own or from someone you trust. Be ungullible of even yourself!

Man cannot escape from these traps with his mind alone. He must use a tool that he invented to independently and unemotionally validate (or invalidate) his theories. And that tool is...

#2 Science! Science! Science!
Don't get me wrong - science is not perfect. There are things it can't answer. And it's practitioners are human, and so by definition are individually guilty of the same logical fallacies noted above. But as a tool of understanding, nothing has come as close to providing the results and progress of science. It is the only tool that allows us to overcome the logical traps we so easily and frequently fall into. The Scientific Method works something like this:

1. You have an idea on how something works.
2. You create tests whose results should help confirm or deny your theory.
3. If proven wrong, you modify your theory and start over.
   
4. If test results are favorable to your theory, you publish your theory, test methodology, and test results for other scientists to review.
5. Other scientists try to poke holes in your theory or test methodology.
   
6. The longer your theory stands up to attempts to knock it down, the more respect it gains.
   

Most classroom descriptions of the Scientific Method focus only on steps 1, 2, and 3 above, so many people are unaware of the rest of the process and it's importance. The rest of the process, whereby other scientists participate, is perhaps even more important than the individual scientist's work. Individually, scientists can be either liberal or conservative, religious or not, skeptical or gullible, or anywhere in between. They are guilty of biases and self delusions. But as a collective group, these biases eventually cancel each other out in the peer review process. Science sometimes makes false starts and follows dead ends, but just like the overall long term trend of the stock market is upwards regardless of short term fluctuations, the overall progress of science is towards more "truth" and a better understanding of our world.
The Main Point: Independent cold hard science trumps personal anecdotal evidence. If your personal experience or claim is contrary to current scientific thinking, that's a clear sign that you need to critically examine your experience or logic for possible flaws or a more scientific explanation. Yes, it's always possible that you've found the Next Big Idea that will turn the world of science on it's head, but don't bet on it.

#3 Watch Out For Scientific Doublespeak
Pseudo-science will frequently use scientific sounding words to confuse people and lend an air of sophistication to their claims. They use phrases like "harmonic resonance" and "quantum energy" in ways that sound scientific to the casual observer, but in actuality make absolutely no sense at all.
The Main Point: Learn to recognize this tactic and become more ungullible of the claims when you encounter it. Scientists use big confusing words when speaking to each other because they are already familiar with the jargon. But they rarely do so when communicating with the general public. So when you see such phrases in magazine and newspaper ads, or on the internet, it's time to dial your B.S. detector up a few notches.

#4 Occam was one sharp guy
Occum was a 14th century English logician and Franciscan Friar who is credited with stating that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible, eliminating those that make no difference in the observable predictions of the explanatory hypothesis or theory. If that was confusing, then just remember it as, "All things being equal, the simplest explanation is the best." This rule of thumb (it's not a scientific law) is often called "Occam's Razor" because it so quickly and easily cuts away competing explanations by selecting the simplest of them.
The Main Point: You should almost always take the simpler explanation over the grandiose one. This often means accepting a mundane and boring explanation over a fanciful and attractive one.

#5 Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence
The more powerful and/or bizarre your claim, the more likely I am to challenge it, and the more evidence I'm going to require before I accept it. If someone claims something that is contrary to multiple well established ideas, then it's more likely that that the new idea is wrong, rather than the multiple established ideas being wrong. It's not impossible that the new idea is true, but the burden of proof should be proportional to the disruption it will cause.
The Main Point: If it's too good to be true, it probably is. Be more ungullible of ideas that make huge claims. Until the claim can be independently verified (see "Science! Science! Science!" above), assume that the claim is probably false.

I think that mostly covers it, but please let me know if I've missed anything, or if you disagree. If you are interested in reading more about the mistakes in logic that people make, and how to avoid them, Ungullible recommends the following books...