1.  How to sell a pseudoscience – Pratkanis & Aronson (1995)

2.  Create a phantom, almost achievable goal and convince others to follow it ◦ Meeting aliens, seances, wisdom from dolphins  Set a rationalisation trap ◦ Get them committed before they can think rationally about things. Spiralling commitment  Create a leader/guru/mystic etc ◦ Use as credible source to spread message which therefore carries weight and stops questioning

3.  Create a Granfalloon ◦ A proud and meaningless collection of human beings. Easy to do, but must give them a shared social identity  Get people to convince themselves by getting them to try and convince others  Construct vivid appeals ◦ Provide detailed case studies. Likely to be very memorable  Use pre-persuasion ◦ Set the stage so you win. 3 steps – Nature of the situation and differentiate (others didn’t work, ours does), set expectations – people believe even if nothing happens, Specify the decision criteria ◦ Homeopathy – Construct argument as right for medical freedom not efficacy

4.  Use heuristic and commonplaces ◦ If it costs more its better, if its rare its better, bandwagon – if everyone agrees it must be true, have a long & strong message, if they are similar they must work (homeopathy), if its natural its good, neglected spirituality, us the word “science” a lot  Attack opponents through innuendo and character assassination 