While wading through my backlog the other day (which is huge) it occurred to me that I could start giving ‘points’ to articles cluttering my box making skeptical claims. To do so, of course, I would need some sort of metre stick of credulity, and came up with the following list of items which set of alarm bells in the rogueclassicist’s noggin:
- Claim is made by someone who is not a specialist (i.e. with a degree) in the discipline
- Claimant has an “Indiana Jones” type epithet, often self-imposed
- Topic of claim is one of the long-standing mysteries (e.g. Cleopatra’s tomb, Alexander’s tomb, anything related to Atlantis, the Ark of the Covenant, something biblical, etc.)
- Claim is initially made on a press release site and later picked up by mainstream media
- Claim has not appeared in a scholarly journal nor is ‘in press’
- The word “decode” is used at least once in the
cliam claim
- The phrase “years of research” figures prominently
- Claimant justifies position with references to the Trojan War or Galileo
- Claimant suggests a “coverup” of some sort by academics
- Claim is made on a significant date (especially if related to early Christianity … Easter and Christmas are the big dates)
- Newspaper report doesn’t actually ask a specialist for a contrary opinion
- Mention of a documentary to come is made in the concluding paragraphs
Of course, many legitimate claims might fall into one or more of the above categories, but it’s the combination of (usually) 3 or so or more which set off the alarm bells. I’ll apply this scale to a really bizarre claim in the next day or so.
rogueclassicism 