The 10 Commandments of Moral Pseudo Science

• “New age” remedies for medical ailments often emphasize their metaphysical component. They are proud to embrace something that science can’t explain.

Anthony Pratkanis, professor of psychology at UC Santa Cruz and an expert on persuasion and propaganda, lists things that are used to sell pseudoscience that go beyond the types of claims that scientists can safely make about their work:

1. Create a phantom: An unavailable goal that looks real and possible but in reality always remains at least one more step away. i.e a 'moral' claim
2. Set a rationalization trap: Get people committed. Then, rather than evaluating merits they will instead seek to prove how they are right.
3. Manufacture source credibility and sincerity: Create someone believable (Pelosi) as the authority figure making the claims.
4. Establish a granfalloon: The term is appropriated from the author Kurt Vonnegut and means “a proud and meaningless association of human beings” who share rituals and symbols, jargon and beliefs, goals, feelings, specialized information, and enemies.
5. Use self-generated persuasion: By asking people to “sell” the concept, they get more personally convinced of its merits.
6. Construct vivid appeals: A graphically described single incident can trump logical arguments.
7. Use pre-persuasion: Frame the argument in terms that make the competition look bad (the FDA wants to remove your freedom to choose our treatment), use differentiation (we have a special technique that sets us apart from the frauds in this field), set expectations (for instance through labeling), and specify the decision criteria (set your own guidelines for what is acceptable evidence).
8. Frequently use heuristics and commonplaces: These are rules, norms, and beliefs that are widely accepted. For instance “What is natural is good” and “If it costs more, it must be more valuable” can both be attached to a premium health food product to give it credibility. Because of their general acceptance, these statements will not often be questioned.
9. Attack opponents through innuendo and character assassination: Make them out to be biased, bad scientists who will probably shortly be investigated for their obvious wrongdoings.
10. Claim that morality is matter, ie like an apple is matter, this leads one to claiming that the  idea of a wall is matter, ergo immoral.