hier wat tips voor de sceptici om alles te ontkennen 
HOW TO DEBUNK JUST ABOUT ANYTHING
Before commencing to debunk, prepare your equipment. Equipment needed: one armchair.
Put on the right face. Cultivate a condescending air that suggests that your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as "ridiculous" or "trivial" in a manner that suggests they have the full force of scientific authority.
Portray science not as an open-ended process of discovery but as a holy war against unruly hordes of quackery-worshipping infidels. Since in war the ends justify the means, you may fudge, stretch or violate the scientific method, or even omit it entirely, in the name of defending the scientific method.
Keep your arguments as abstract and theoretical as possible. This will "send the message" that accepted theory overrides any actual evidence that might challenge it--and that therefore no such evidence is worth examining.
Reinforce the popular misconception that certain subjects are inherently unscientific. In other words, deliberately confuse the process of science with the content of science. (Someone may, of course, object that since science is a universal approach to truth-seeking it must be neutral to subject matter; hence, only the investigative process can be scientifically responsible or irresponsible. If that happens, dismiss such objections using a method employed successfully by generations of politicians: simply reassure everyone that "there is no contradiction here!")
Arrange to have your message echoed by persons of authority. The degree to which you can stretch the truth is directly proportional to the prestige of your mouthpiece.
Always refer to unorthodox statements as "claims", which are "touted", and to your own assertions as "facts", which are "stated".
Avoid examining the actual evidence. This allows you to say with impunity, "I have seen absolutely no evidence to support such ridiculous claims!" (Note that this technique has withstood the test of time, and dates back at least to the age of Galileo. By simply refusing to look through his telescope, the ecclesiastical authorities bought the Church over three centuries' worth of denial free and clear!)
If examining the evidence becomes unavoidable, report back that "there is nothing new here!" If confronted by a watertight body of evidence that has survived the most rigorous tests, simply dismiss it as being "too pat".
Equate the necessary skeptical component of science with all of science. Emphasize the narrow, stringent, rigorous and critical elements of science to the exclusion of intuition, inspiration, exploration and integration. If anyone objects, accuse them of viewing science in exclusively fuzzy, subjective or metaphysical terms.
Insist that the progress of science depends on explaining the unknown in terms of the known. In other words, science equals reductionism. You can apply the reductionist approach in any situation by discarding more and more and more evidence until what little is left can finally be explained entirely in terms of established knowledge.
Downplay the fact that free inquiry and legitimate disagreement are a normal part of science.
Make yourself available to media producers who seek "balanced reporting" of unorthodox views. However, agree to participate in only those presentations whose time constraints and a priori bias preclude such luxuries as discussion, debate and cross-examination.
At every opportunity reinforce the notion that what is familiar is necessarily rational. The unfamiliar is therefore irrational, and consequently inadmissible as evidence.
State categorically that the unconventional may be dismissed as, at best, an honest misinterpretation of the conventional.
Characterize your opponents as "uncritical believers". Summarily dismiss the notion that debunkery itself betrays uncritical belief, albeit in the status quo.
Maintain that in investigations of unconventional phenomena, a single flaw invalidates the whole. In conventional contexts, however, you may sagely remind the world that, "after all, situations are complex and human beings are imperfect".
"Occam's Razor", or the "principle of parsimony", says the correct explanation of a mystery will usually involve the simplest fundamental principles. Insist, therefore, that the standard explanation is the correct one, since it involves no additional assumptions! Imply strongly that Occam's Razor is not merely a philosophical rule of thumb but an immutable law.
Discourage any study of history that may reveal today's dogma as yesterday's heresy. Likewise, avoid discussing the many historical, philosophical and spiritual parallels between science and democracy.
Since the public tends to be unclear about the distinction between evidence and proof, do your best to help maintain this murkiness. If absolute proof is lacking, state categorically that "there is no evidence!"
If sufficient evidence has been presented to warrant further investigation of an unusual phenomenon, argue that "evidence alone proves nothing!" Ignore the fact that preliminary evidence is not supposed to prove anything.
In any case, imply that proof precedes evidence. This will eliminate the possibility of initiating any meaningful process of investigation--particularly if no criteria of proof have yet been established for the phenomenon in question.
Insist that criteria of proof cannot possibly be established for phenomena that do not exist.
Although science is not supposed to tolerate vague or double standards, always insist that unconventional phenomena must be judged by a separate, yet ill-defined, set of scientific rules. Do this by declaring that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence"-- but take care never to define where the "ordinary" ends and the "extraordinary" begins. This will allow you to manufacture an infinitely receding evidential horizon; i.e., to define "extraordinary" evidence as that which lies just out of reach at any point in time.
In the same manner, insist on classes of evidence that are impossible to obtain. For example, declare that unidentified aerial phenomena may be considered real only if we can bring them into laboratories to strike them with hammers and analyze their physical properties. Disregard the accomplishments of the inferential sciences--astronomy, for example, which gets on just fine without bringing actual planets, stars, galaxies and black holes into its labs and striking them with hammers.
Practice debunkery-by-association. Lump together all phenomena popularly deemed paranormal and suggest that their proponents and researchers speak with a single voice. In this way you can indiscriminately drag material across disciplinary lines or from one case to another to support your views as needed. For example, if a claim having some superficial similarity to the one at hand has been (or is popularly assumed to have been) exposed as fraudulent, cite it as if it were an appropriate example. Then put on a gloating smile, lean back in your armchair and just say "I rest my case".
Use the word "imagination" as an epithet that applies only to seeing what's not there, and not to denying what is there.
If a significant number of people agree that they have observed something that violates the consensus reality, simply ascribe it to "mass hallucination". Avoid addressing the possibility that the consensus reality might itself constitute a mass hallucination.
Ridicule, ridicule, ridicule. It is far and away the single most chillingly effective weapon in the war against discovery and innovation. Ridicule has the unique power to make people of virtually any persuasion go completely unconscious in a twinkling. It fails to sway only those few who are of sufficiently independent mind not to buy into the kind of emot
HOW TO DEBUNK JUST ABOUT ANYTHING
Before commencing to debunk, prepare your equipment. Equipment needed: one armchair.
Put on the right face. Cultivate a condescending air that suggests that your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Employ vague, subjective, dismissive terms such as "ridiculous" or "trivial" in a manner that suggests they have the full force of scientific authority.
Portray science not as an open-ended process of discovery but as a holy war against unruly hordes of quackery-worshipping infidels. Since in war the ends justify the means, you may fudge, stretch or violate the scientific method, or even omit it entirely, in the name of defending the scientific method.
Keep your arguments as abstract and theoretical as possible. This will "send the message" that accepted theory overrides any actual evidence that might challenge it--and that therefore no such evidence is worth examining.
Reinforce the popular misconception that certain subjects are inherently unscientific. In other words, deliberately confuse the process of science with the content of science. (Someone may, of course, object that since science is a universal approach to truth-seeking it must be neutral to subject matter; hence, only the investigative process can be scientifically responsible or irresponsible. If that happens, dismiss such objections using a method employed successfully by generations of politicians: simply reassure everyone that "there is no contradiction here!")
Arrange to have your message echoed by persons of authority. The degree to which you can stretch the truth is directly proportional to the prestige of your mouthpiece.
Always refer to unorthodox statements as "claims", which are "touted", and to your own assertions as "facts", which are "stated".
Avoid examining the actual evidence. This allows you to say with impunity, "I have seen absolutely no evidence to support such ridiculous claims!" (Note that this technique has withstood the test of time, and dates back at least to the age of Galileo. By simply refusing to look through his telescope, the ecclesiastical authorities bought the Church over three centuries' worth of denial free and clear!)
If examining the evidence becomes unavoidable, report back that "there is nothing new here!" If confronted by a watertight body of evidence that has survived the most rigorous tests, simply dismiss it as being "too pat".
Equate the necessary skeptical component of science with all of science. Emphasize the narrow, stringent, rigorous and critical elements of science to the exclusion of intuition, inspiration, exploration and integration. If anyone objects, accuse them of viewing science in exclusively fuzzy, subjective or metaphysical terms.
Insist that the progress of science depends on explaining the unknown in terms of the known. In other words, science equals reductionism. You can apply the reductionist approach in any situation by discarding more and more and more evidence until what little is left can finally be explained entirely in terms of established knowledge.
Downplay the fact that free inquiry and legitimate disagreement are a normal part of science.
Make yourself available to media producers who seek "balanced reporting" of unorthodox views. However, agree to participate in only those presentations whose time constraints and a priori bias preclude such luxuries as discussion, debate and cross-examination.
At every opportunity reinforce the notion that what is familiar is necessarily rational. The unfamiliar is therefore irrational, and consequently inadmissible as evidence.
State categorically that the unconventional may be dismissed as, at best, an honest misinterpretation of the conventional.
Characterize your opponents as "uncritical believers". Summarily dismiss the notion that debunkery itself betrays uncritical belief, albeit in the status quo.
Maintain that in investigations of unconventional phenomena, a single flaw invalidates the whole. In conventional contexts, however, you may sagely remind the world that, "after all, situations are complex and human beings are imperfect".
"Occam's Razor", or the "principle of parsimony", says the correct explanation of a mystery will usually involve the simplest fundamental principles. Insist, therefore, that the standard explanation is the correct one, since it involves no additional assumptions! Imply strongly that Occam's Razor is not merely a philosophical rule of thumb but an immutable law.
Discourage any study of history that may reveal today's dogma as yesterday's heresy. Likewise, avoid discussing the many historical, philosophical and spiritual parallels between science and democracy.
Since the public tends to be unclear about the distinction between evidence and proof, do your best to help maintain this murkiness. If absolute proof is lacking, state categorically that "there is no evidence!"
If sufficient evidence has been presented to warrant further investigation of an unusual phenomenon, argue that "evidence alone proves nothing!" Ignore the fact that preliminary evidence is not supposed to prove anything.
In any case, imply that proof precedes evidence. This will eliminate the possibility of initiating any meaningful process of investigation--particularly if no criteria of proof have yet been established for the phenomenon in question.
Insist that criteria of proof cannot possibly be established for phenomena that do not exist.
Although science is not supposed to tolerate vague or double standards, always insist that unconventional phenomena must be judged by a separate, yet ill-defined, set of scientific rules. Do this by declaring that "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence"-- but take care never to define where the "ordinary" ends and the "extraordinary" begins. This will allow you to manufacture an infinitely receding evidential horizon; i.e., to define "extraordinary" evidence as that which lies just out of reach at any point in time.
In the same manner, insist on classes of evidence that are impossible to obtain. For example, declare that unidentified aerial phenomena may be considered real only if we can bring them into laboratories to strike them with hammers and analyze their physical properties. Disregard the accomplishments of the inferential sciences--astronomy, for example, which gets on just fine without bringing actual planets, stars, galaxies and black holes into its labs and striking them with hammers.
Practice debunkery-by-association. Lump together all phenomena popularly deemed paranormal and suggest that their proponents and researchers speak with a single voice. In this way you can indiscriminately drag material across disciplinary lines or from one case to another to support your views as needed. For example, if a claim having some superficial similarity to the one at hand has been (or is popularly assumed to have been) exposed as fraudulent, cite it as if it were an appropriate example. Then put on a gloating smile, lean back in your armchair and just say "I rest my case".
Use the word "imagination" as an epithet that applies only to seeing what's not there, and not to denying what is there.
If a significant number of people agree that they have observed something that violates the consensus reality, simply ascribe it to "mass hallucination". Avoid addressing the possibility that the consensus reality might itself constitute a mass hallucination.
Ridicule, ridicule, ridicule. It is far and away the single most chillingly effective weapon in the war against discovery and innovation. Ridicule has the unique power to make people of virtually any persuasion go completely unconscious in a twinkling. It fails to sway only those few who are of sufficiently independent mind not to buy into the kind of emot
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