I was watching Penn and Teller's Bullshit again, a marvelous series that aimed to give people the information they need to discern bullshit from reality. It's an absolute gem, and it's the kind of thing we really need more of in this age, when everyone now has access to the internet, but they are ill equipped to handle all the information flowing around. That's due to a failure of the educational systems around the world, that in some areas focus a bit too much on getting people to remember a few things long enough to repeat them, and not enough on understanding.
The internet is filled with bullshit, bullshit that people buy constantly, often in the literal sense, robbing people of their money, and... their lives. Medical pseudo-science really grinds my gears, and after witnessing the horrors it can bring upon I have no reservations in calling supporters of quackery accomplices to crime.
So, in the hope that you won't be one inadvertently, sharing horrible articles, giving credence to lies, or worst of all, believing bullshit, I've got a few tips for how to realize what to look for.
1) Details and sources are important
The fewer details an article has, the more likely it is that it is based on shoddy information. While some writers will get lazy and be confident enough that people will read the details in a source link (I've done this many times and it's really not something I should have done), some will not give you a source to where you can get more details. This can indicate that the details would disprove the main premise of the article, or they simply do not exist, and everything is bunk. Omitting details is also a very popular and harmful method. I recently read an article right here on Steemit about how a vaccine causes autism, that omitted details about how the incidents of autism were reported, and that incidents of outright death after the vaccine were also reported in the document, but were not taken into account by the article. After all, the narrative of the article was that vaccines cause autism, not that vaccines cause death, even though they were both based on anecdotal information.
2) Studies aren't created equal, and statistics can lie
You will often see studies being cited in articles as the basis of all the information. Well, there's a problem with studies, even the most well meaning ones. Most studies ar bunk. For a study to actually give good, usable information, it needs to be done in very specific ways, so that there is no way for the data you get to be contaminated by other factors. If it's food related, for example, you need to be able to trust that the people taking part of the test aren't cheating and snacking in secret, they probably are, or that they don't have any other medical issues that would ruin the results anyway. That's why it's good for a study to have a large test base. How large? If any study has a test base of less than 100 people, it is garbage, do not take it into account. If it's less than 1000, it is probably wrong, do not take it into account. If it's under 10.000, there may be errors and the results may not be conclusive. Once you get to around 20.000 people, things tend to be a bit clearer, and that's only if, and I mean IF the things tested are actually quantifiable and not random bullshit that is interpretabile in a billion ways and depend on too many other factors to be actually testable. And when it comes to statistics, always be careful how they are calculated, because the numbers can say anything that people want them to say. Look at the methodology, and how the statistics were made.
3) Fuck your feelings
Whenever an article tries to go for the feelings angle, whenever it drags a victim into the limelight so that you will feel for that person, empathize with that persons tragedy, ignore some facts because you should feel more for that person, than you should do for reality, you can be sure it is absolute shit. It's an age old tactic, appeal to feelings when all your arguments are crap. People that do this to victims of tragedy for their own purpose, people that use others as pawns in their attempts to gain a foothold, people that use children as their defense, people that use those that can't even speak for themselves as evidence that they are right, are especially heinous. They are scum. They should never be listened to, because their aim is not to inform you, it's to manipulate you into agreeing with them, in spite of them not having anything to back up their claims with. You'll see this especially in the "vaccines are evil" camps, where they'll tell you stories of the poor children suffering from autism, instead of giving you any sort of conclusive evidence that they are right.
5) Anecdotes, speculation and opinions aren't facts
"I feel", "I think", "It seems", "There may be", "It could", "We don't know, but it could mean that" and so on are indications that whatever is written after that is most likely false. People often tend to fill in the blanks with their own opinion and deliver that as facts. Be careful when reading an article because it may contain a lot of speculation, a lot of assumptions, and they may all be false. The same is true for quotes you see from people involved. To put it bluntly, eyewitness testimony is garbage. You can not trust people. Even when they have the best intentions and don't omit things that would make them look bad, you can not trust their brains to remember things accurately. So when someone says "Well, I wore a magnet over night on my knee and now my pain is gone, it totally works", don't take them at their word, even if they don't believe they are lying. Why? Because magnets don't heal anything, the power of suggestion is real, the body heals itself by default, and you can't trust unverifiable testimonies, ever. And if someone starts with "Well, I heard that", be prepared for something that has a high probability of being false.
6) Authority doesn't make something true
Just because someone has Doctor next to their name, doesn't mean what they say, without backing it up with data, is true. Authority does not equate truth. Always remember that, especially in really, really sketchy fields and in pseudo-science, where people can make up any title they want, and then try to use that to add validity to their claims. Always remember something very important, regardless of what field a person works in, and how high and important it may sound, there will always be people that are shit at their job. So it's always good to see if an article that uses the claims of some scientist, some doctor, some "expert" in a field, actually tries and go into detail about the credentials of that person. If it doesn't, and you can't find any info about it, well, take it with a grain of mug of salt. That being said, when you're in areas that require speculation, it may be better to look at what someone familiar with the field has to say. Remember when there was that star that had something around it? Every article written by clickbait mongers were in the "it's a Dyson sphere", "it's proof of aliens from Beta-Zauri that have communicated with me previously and probed my butt". They were written by people without knowledge of the subject who didn't have a clue what the thing actually was. If you asked astro-physicists and people familiar with the field, they'd say it could be a bunch of comets or debris from a broken up planet. Now, they also have no idea what it actually is, but it sounds a bit closer to reality, it falls within what they expect it to be, based on the experience they have in the field.
7) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, belief is bullshit
If someone claims that their device can levitate a building, that their solar roadway can power a city, that they found a crashed alien spaceship in the desert, they need to prove it. It's not a matter that "oh, in theory" or "Oh, well, you've got to take my word for it". When making a big claim, you need to offer evidence that backs that up. Believing someone on face value shouldn't be the starting position. The ideal position would be that of an open skeptic mind. Not open enough so that your brain falls out, and you start spewing crap like "Well, I can't disprove that your claim of you being the reincarnation of the dead alien god Katafuitaplex, because you offered no evidence that you are, so it MUST be true". And not skeptic enough to spew crap like "Lol! Fake, everything's fake. Photoshoped! A rat would never carry a pizza down some stairs."
It's also important to note that if someone claims that a device breaks the laws of physics, by offering infinite energy, or shoving hours worth of oxygen into containers too small to contain a minute's worth, don't require extraordinary evidence. They are just plain bullshit.
8) It's never aliens
Never. There's zero evidence that we've been visited by aliens. And if you're going to point to the recent articles about the US having a black budget program to study UFOs, well, go back to nr. 1. A lot of the articles glossed over important details, like the money being funneled to an important donor of the senator that set up the program, and that donor being a loon that researches spirit wolves. As for the videos, one of them is a training exercise for rookies to learn to use that nifty camera mount. It's a jet seen from behind. It never moves in anything but a straight line. The rest is a lens effect from the movement of the camera. Pilot eyewitness testimonies fall into nr.5. And to continue dispelling things, crop circles are made by bored and creative people, the Egyptians were good at building things, and the appearance of pyramids and patterns of 3 on several different continents would be a lot more amazing and proving of Atlantean-alien civilizations of some of the pyramids were made by ant-eaters, and not humans that all share the same kind of brain, with the same kind of pattern recognition, the same kind of rationalization capabilities.
9) It's never ghosts
See above, replace aliens with ghosts. Realize that most ghosts in pictures are illuminated particles of dust.
1)It's never demons
See above, replace aliens with demons. Realize that most demons in pictures are cats with eye shine.
11) It's never angels
See above, replace aliens with angles. Realize faith healers are bullshit and should be arrested for duping dying people out of their money and convincing them to not get actual medical attention.
12) Trust is built, not given.
This is an important detail that you should always remember. It should be your guiding light. Can you trust a writer to be true to you? To be true to the field? Not at face value. Trust is earned, it is easily broken, it is hard to regain, and people that really care about it will do their best to never break it. And if they do make a mistake, they will admit it, they will strive to never repeat it. People that don't care, will make constant "mistakes" and promise to never do it again, but always do.
I especially encourage you to share this article with elderly people, since they seem to be the least equipped to handle the internet, judging from all the crap they share on Facebook.