After last month’s vintage-inspired short films on critical thinking for kids comes this “Baloney Detection Kit” for grown-ups from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science and Skeptic Magazine editor Michael Shermer — a 10-point checklist for assessing the believability of a claim, covering everything from telling the difference between science (e.g., SETI) and pseudoscience (e.g., UFOlogy) to detecting personal agendas.

You want to have a mind that’s open enough to accept radical new ideas, but not so open that your brains fall out.”

The above sentiment in particular echoes this beautiful definition of science as “systematic wonder” driven by an osmosis of empirical rigor and imaginative whimsy.

The complete checklist:

1. How reliable is the source of the claim?
2. Does the source make similar claims?
3. Have the claims been verified by somebody else?
4. Does this fit with the way the world works?
5. Has anyone tried to disprove the claim?
6. Where does the preponderance of evidence point?
7. Is the claimant playing by the rules of science?
8. Is the claimant providing positive evidence?
9. Does the new theory account for as many phenomena as the old theory?
10. Are personal beliefs driving the claim?

The charming animation comes from UK studio Pew 36. The Richard Dawkins Foundation has a free iTunes podcast, covering topics as diverse as theory of mind, insurance policy, and Socrates’ “unconsidered life.”

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