Critical thinkingArticle: Scott O. Lilienfeld (2005)The 10 commandments of helping students distinguish science from pseudoscience in psychology The first commandment It is important to communicate to students that the differences between between science and pseudoscience, although not absolute or clear-cut, are neither arbitrary or subjective.Warning signs that characterize most pseudoscientific disciplines:A tendency to invoke ad hoc hypotheses, which can be thought of as ‘escape hatches’ or loopholes, as a means of immunizing claims from falsification.An absence of self-correction and an accompanying intellectual stagnationAn emphasis on confirmation rather than refutationA tendency to place the burden of proof on sceptics, not proponents, of claimsExcessive reliance on anecdotal and testimonial evidence to substantiate claimsEvasion of the scrutiny afforded by peer reviewAbsence of ‘connectivity’, a failure to build on existing scientific knowledgeUse of impressive-sounding jargon whose primary purpose is to lend claims of facade of scientific respectabilityAn absence of boundary conditions. A failure to specify the settings under which claims do not hold.Non of these warnings signs is by itself sufficient to indicate that a discipline is pseudoscientific.But, the more of these warning signs a discipline exhibits, the more suspect it should become.The second commandmentLearning to distinguish scepticism from cynicism.One danger of teaching students to distinguish science from pseudoscience is that we can...