Grain of Salt: how to take a claim apart
Grain of Salt is a working reference that walks you through the steps by which a claim is checked, from its structure to the evidence behind it.
Grain of Salt is a reference built around a single operation: taking a claim you have heard and working through the steps that decide whether it holds. The site is organised into seven sections, each of which names a distinct part of that work. You move from the shape of an argument, to the errors that make a false argument feel true, to the evidence and numbers that actually carry a claim, and finally to the method that puts an idea to the test.
The sections are Logical fallacies, Cognitive bias, Logical reasoning, Evidence and proof, Evaluating sources, Reading numbers, and The scientific method. Each opens on a hub page that states the plain rule, then holds a set of cards that take one pattern or one skill at a time. Nothing here adjudicates a live contested claim and no living person is named as an example. The whole site is one reference: how a claim is tested.

Test the claim before you believe it
Logical fallacies
Logical fallacies gathers the recurring argument patterns in which the conclusion does not follow from the reasons offered for it.
Cognitive bias
Cognitive bias covers the systematic errors in judgment that make an untested claim feel as though it has already been checked.
Logical reasoning
Logical reasoning sets out the rules that carry support from stated premises to a conclusion, from deduction to induction.
What counts as evidence
Evidence and proof states what counts as evidence, who carries the burden of proof, and when a claim can be falsified.
Evaluating sources
Evaluating sources is the work of tracing a claim back to where it came from and deciding how much weight it deserves.
PRIMARY SOURCEPrimary vs secondary sourcesA primary source is a record created by someone with direct access to the event, object, person or data it describes.MEDIA LITERACYMedia literacyMedia literacy is the ability to work out where a piece of media came from, what it is actually claiming, what evidence sits behind that claim.
PEER REVIEWPeer reviewPeer review is the process in which a journal sends a submitted manuscript to independent specialists in the same field.
P HACKINGPublication biasPublication bias is the systematic tendency for studies with striking results to reach print while studies that found nothing stay in a drawer.Reading numbers
Reading names the patterns by which true numbers are arranged so that a reader draws a false conclusion.
The scientific method
The scientific method is presented as a procedure that gives an idea a fair chance to fail before it is accepted.
CONTROL GROUPControl groups and blindingA control group is the set of participants in an experiment who do not get the thing being tested, kept as similar as possible to the group that does.COLD READINGCold readingCold reading is a set of conversational techniques that let one person appear to know private facts about a stranger.Restored addresses
- /lgbt-anger-at-obama-reaches-tipping-point Composition and division
- /brown-shirt-tactics Ad hominem
- /minnesota-vote-fraud-2812-dead-voters The base rate fallacy
- /2010/02/democratic-illinois-lt-gov-nominee-arrested-for-domestic-battery Evaluating sources
- /devores-abortion-critique-of-fiorina-without-merit Logical fallacies
- /interview-chuck-devore Primary vs secondary sources
- /2010/04/the-bipartisanship-washington-needs False dilemma (false dichotomy)
- /2008/11/two-daddies Logical reasoning
- /2010/06/romanoff-white-house-aide-admit-jobs-talk The loaded question
- /2010/06/dave-weigel-and-the-washington-post-a-case-of-false-pretenses Media literacy
- /2010/06/vp-biden-to-shopkeeper-stop-being-a-smartass Evaluating sources
- /2010/03/cnn-poll-59-of-americans-now-in-opposition-to-obama%E2%80%99s-health-care-plan Sample size
- /2010/05/four-reporters-ejected-from-gitmo-hearing-after-revealing-name-of-protected-witness Media literacy
Grain of Salt publishes at skepticians.com since 2026. Under another owner this domain treated the same subject from 2008 to 2021.