The all-natural red flag is when a claim is made that something is “all natural”, and therefore, it is healthy, safe and possibly better for you.  This is something we much watch out for because there are tons of natural things that are deadly or poisonous.

The link below discusses must-have health products that are all natural.  This is a red flag because they want you to assume that each product is better than other competitors because they are made with all natural ingredients.  Unfortunately, these products could be very harmful.  Applying critical thinking and skepticism is important before buying these products.  What ingredients are in these products?  Can you find any reliable sources that talk about those ingredients?  Can you prove that those all natural ingredients can cause positive effects?    People may perceive that they are good products and just assume they are healthy.

The mystical energy red flag often involves things that can provide “positive energy” or other terms that refer to energy.  This is a red flag because the word energy has nothing to do with being positive or negative as it refers to the strength required for physical and metal work.

This YouTube video connects to the mystical energy red flag because it states in the title that listing to the video will “Clear All Bad Energy & Mental Blockages" as well as “boost positive energy”.  They are trying to use the words, energy, in a way that doesn’t use the actual definition. This is misleading because this mystical energy is not real, and people may believe that it is true.  One of the limitations with YouTube is that anybody can post anything.  Since freedom of speech is important and people should be allowed to post any legal content, we need to use critical thinking when we watch videos like this.  Some people may claim this video does boosts their positive energy as they might connect it to simplicity.   “I feel better now after watching it, so it must boost positive energy!”   We need to be cautious when watching such videos.  

A red herring is when somebody uses useless and irrelevant information regarding the context of a conversion.  For example you ask a student why they failed to submit an assignment and they reply talking about the hurricane in South Carolina.

This YouTube video connects to the red herring red flag.  During a town hall event in Regina, Saskatchewan, an audience member asks Prime Minister Trudeau “What did you mean by gender impacts when you bring construction workers into a rural area” and what the “the social and gender impacts are”.  Prime minister Trudeau replies to the audience member praising construction workers and how they are the “building block” of Canada’s infrastructure. He also goes on after talking about building the future that we need.  This is clearly a red herring because he didn’t answer the question that was asked.  His answer was irrelevant to the question and it was an attempt to completely dodge the question.  A limitation with the platform of YouTube is that clips can be cut to distort the views of the viewer. However, in this clip, both the audience member and Prime Minister Trudeau's comments are heard, and no audio is cut off. 

The ancient wisdom red flag is for when something is done because it was done is past civilizations, thus, people think it must be a good idea or practice.  It is an idea that the ancient wisdoms may have been smarter than we are.

The link provided is to astrology.com, which can give you daily horoscopes.  This is an ancient wisdom red flag because the concept of astrology was dated all the way back to 1^st century BC.  There is no actual scientific evidence confirming that when you were born, and your personality has a relationship.  This falls under the patternicity category for the reason why people chose to believe.  They try to take the horoscope and find patterns with their own life, then they believe that horoscopes are real.   It’s easy to believe in horoscopes and we must use critical thinking to find the answers.  A flaw with astrology.com is that there is no way to prove how accurate the horoscopes are.  

The confirmation bias red flag is when somebody tends to only remember the things that are related to their beliefs and forget what does not relate to their beliefs.  

The link provided below, connects to the confirmation bias red flag because, it tries to trick the reader into matching the statements with their everyday lives and making them think they have ESP.  A reader may easily fall into the trap and believe they have ESP, if they already believe in ESP to begin with.  When we apply critical thinking to this, we can understand that without a physical way to prove that somebody has ESP, by getting results and being able to repeat those results, we can’t find out if we have ESP simply by reading an article.  A lot of times it is simply a coincidence that your dream had to do with an event that happened months later.  This could connect to the “simplicity” reason for belief because it seems like it is legit and it’s easy to believe.  A flaw with this article is that it is written by a “professional tarot reader”, so her opinions will be more one sided on topics such as ESP.

The reason for belief Perception/Observation refers to the fact that human memory is faulty, and is influenced by our perceptions and observations of real world events. An example of this could be a group of people witnessing the same event but all of them remembering it differently.
 
 Connection:
This video connects to the Perception/Observation reason for belief because it shows seven different Rorschach test ink blots and asks you what you see. This is related to the perception observation reason for belief because Rorschach tests were invented to test people’s perceptions based on their observations of the presented ink blots.

The reason for belief Patternicity, refers to human’s tendency to see patterns, people, things, and faces in objects or paintings that aren’t truly present.

Connection: 

This video connects to the Patternicity reason for belief as it shows a large number of pictures of everyday objects that accidently and possibly on purpose look like famous television characters.
This is related to patternicity as it is a good example of how humans are capable of seeing things in images that aren’t actually there.

The reason for belief Ideology is refers to people’s system of ideas and their beliefs that form their values. Some good examples of ideologies would be religious and political ideologies.

Connection:

This video by crash course on YouTube connects to the ideology belief. This video connects to ideology because it talks about the different types of political ideologies and their usual core beliefs. One example they use when speaking about the different political ideologies is “Conservatives”. It goes on to speak about the how liberals tend to prefer small governments, strong military defense, and free market.

The problem with astrology.com is that it they are supporting the use of astrology to predict futures, when it does not have any scientific base to support that it does.  

http://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/03/23/how-does-astrology-work/ - This article is against the idea that astrology is scientifically able to predict the future.  According to the article, a study was performed using over 4000 people to determine if when they were born and their personalities and no correlations were found.   The source of the link comes from West Texas A&M University and is written by Dr. Christopher Baird.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2eMUmumw0 – This article is against the idea of astrology and horoscopes.  The video claims how astrology isn’t real science because you can’t prove that it is right or wrong. In addition, it is discussed that people astrology signs are off due to the when the earth “wobbles on it’s axis every 25,800-year cycle “, causing the stars to be aligned differently.  The source is a YouTube channel called “seeker”.

Source #1: This source appears to be very credible.  All the studies discussed in the article are linked, to allow the reader of the article to read the study for themselves. In addition, it is on the website for the West Texas A&M University.  The author does link proof to his point and does not say claims without backing it up.  For example Dr.Baird discusses how horoscopes can be make people “feel better” due to the placebo effect.  The results of the studies can be reproduced, but the results of horoscopes being true or false cannot be reproduced.  The scientific method has not been used.  

Source #2: This source appears to be credible.  They provide links in the description to most of their talking points and don’t apply their personal feelings to the topic discussed, which is astrology.  Some facts have been checked, including that the astrology signs have shifted and that using the “old model” your sign doesn’t match up like it did when astrology first came about.  The results cannot be reproduced, and the scientific method cannot be used to prove or disprove astrology.  

There are many assumptions, emotions and biases linked with astrology.  To start, many people will read their horoscopes and assume astrology is scientifically accurate because they could relate it to their life.  This could connect to the patternicity reason for belief as people look for patterns.  The horoscopes are written in a way that makes it very easy to relate it to your own personal life and allows people to believe in the concept of astrology.  Confirmation bias is a common culprit as people want to believe in it and forget about the arguments against astrology and horoscopes.  

Alternative 1) Astrology cannot be proven to be real or fake, but astrology cannot predict your future due to what studies have stated.

Alternative 2) Astrology cannot be proven to be real or fake, but astrology makes me feel happy and I strongly believe it is real and can predict my day, future and relationships.

Alternative 1 is the best alternative.  Astrology cannot be proven to be false or true as it is not science.  There is no doubt that it may be fun to see your horoscope and to relate it to your life but it cannot actually predict your future.  A great example of this is the study “over 4000 individuals and found no correlation between birth date and personality or intelligence” (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886905004046).  This shows how it couldn’t be possible to predict your personality and future based on when you were born.