The Baloney Detection Kit

While reading articles on how to develop a killer product, I came across a piece titled “The Baloney Detection Kit: Necessary cognitive fortification against propaganda, pseudoscience, and general falsehood”.

http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/

This article outlined the types of deceptions a person is vulnerable to and helped me improve my social venture because it cautioned me against biases and prejudices. The most comprehensive tools from this kit that were of relevance for me to develop “healthy skepticism” were:

1.     “Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.””

2.     “Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.”

3.     “Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.”

This point particularly caught my eye and I realized that I had to modify my venture because to some extent I was unable to disprove other alternatives and felt conflicted that I was running with the “first idea that caught my fancy”.  Hence I started looking deeper into the objective I wanted to achieve and my concept has seen a new iteration because of this critical thinking process.

4.     “Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.”

5.     “Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses.” I realized that my venture was vague and mostly qualitative but it would be more useful to quantify some aspects such as: How many people would this impact? How would it improve their future? How will I determine if my venture has been successful? What ROI do I expect in the future?  While I am hammering out more details of my venture I feel more confident and knowledgeable about my product.