An illustrated guide to the red flags of quackery

We are inundated with products that make all kinds of outrageous claims. How do you separate the truth from the pseudoscience? With this handy guide from sci-ence.org. An example:

“Western Medicine”: The Alt. Med crowd loves this one, which conjures images of imperialistic white people in comparison to their gentle, soft, tiger killing, rhino horn penis engorging Eastern medicine. Right? There is no such thing as “Western Medicine.” Only medicine that has been proven to work, and medicine that has either not been proven to work, or proven not to work. If you want to group them, I propose “Medicine” and “Crap.” Hint: The “Medicine” category doesn’t involve magic potions or mystic energy fields

This is a great list, and in the spirit of science and debate it is open to revision. So feel free to drop by and add your favorites to the list. I'm thinking that this could turn into a fun party game or possibly a "Quackery score" for products based on how many of these red flags are used in their advertising.

(thx Melissa)

Ed

Ed enjoys all forms of entertainment and has an unnatural love for quantitative methodology. He operates out of a basement in Northern Virginia (@edomaniac).

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