Decide whether a claim or article is worth believing
When to use
You've read something surprising or alarming and are deciding whether to believe, share, or act on it.
What you'll get
A structured evaluation covering source quality, replication likelihood, base rate, and the credible opposing view.
The prompt
I've read the following: [PASTE THE CLAIM OR DESCRIBE IT]. My initial reaction: [INCLINED TO BELIEVE / SKEPTICAL / ALARMED / OTHER].
Before I share or act on this:
- How easily I can imagine something doesn't tell me how likely it is. Things that are vivid, emotionally charged, or recently in the news feel more probable than base rates warrant. Am I being influenced by how dramatic this claim is, rather than by evidence for it?
- Surprising, counterintuitive findings — especially ones with a neat practical takeaway — are more likely to get published and shared, and less likely to survive replication. The more interesting a finding sounds, the more skeptical I should probably be.
Evaluate this by covering: what I'd need to know about the source and methodology to take it seriously; whether this is the type of claim that typically survives scrutiny or typically doesn't; what the base rate is for this kind of thing independent of how this story frames it; and what a credible opposing view looks like.Why this prompt works
The replication-likelihood point is the most counter-intuitive and most useful. The most-shared findings are often the least reliable. Building in that skepticism produces better information hygiene over time.
The psychology behind this
The Availability Heuristic
Read the full experiment →57_availability_heuristic.mdThe Misinformation Effect
Read the full experiment →08_misinformation_effect.md