Introduction

A headline in the July 13, 1997 issue of the Kansas City Star proclaimed "Mission's skeptics abound on Web." The article included the following Internet postings concerning the Pathfinder's landing on and Sojourner's exploration of Mars. "The images are obviously fake." "I guess the Roswell incident isn't the only hoax we're being treated to in 1997." The article also reports that one television producer placed pictures on the World Wide Web that supposedly show plastic containers in the images of the "Martian landscape" transmitted by NASA. Although the images are quite blurry, that Web site attracted several thousand individuals in just a few days. On the other hand, we have the scientific reports and televised pictures the scientists hail as a major scientific advance. Who should you believe? In this Psychology In Your Life segment we explore how you can become a good consumer of information. As a student of psychology, you can learn to evaluate the critical features of knowledge claims and make educated decisions concerning their probable truth.