How to find out if an author is practicing pseudoscience or is fraudulent? I have had the need to dig deep into the theory of architecture and in doing so I have encountered various authors who make extremely grandiose claims about themselves and their work.

This of course is not a measure for the actual value of their achievements, but sometimes it is hard to find out if an author is just very bad at expressing themselves, want to mask their ideas with jargon in order to make them seem even deeper, or if they really are just fabricating incoherent theories.

I by no mean want to denigrate anyone, but I don't want to learn from authors who are practicing junk science. The problem with architecture are authors who talk not just about architectural theory - but connect various disciplines to it, for example psychology, computer science, mathematics, etc... I have no required knowledge of any of those disciplines - so it is impossible for me to know if they are just using complex constructs from another discipline in a way that is just "sugar coating" for their claims.

A bigger problem is that there are very few people who have studied both architecture and some other discipline in detail and are able to comment both.

In this case I am baffled by two authors: Nikos A. Salingaros and Michael Leyton. Their book make incredible sounding claims, and their homepages and Amazon reviews are full of praise that rings all kinds of alarm bells, but at the same time they have permanent positions in universities which to my knowledge are quite reputable, and they have published a lot...

Regarding Michael Leytons theory of perception and cognition, there is a detailed criticism by Hendrickx and Wageman, but as I said, I am no mathematician... Apparently there is something wrong with the mathematical side of his theory though.

Is there any way to find if I can trust these authors? They seem to gather citations from their students and other people who use their work without any kind of criticism. Do I need to go through the magazines they publish into and find out if they are peer reviewed and of good reputation? How would I go about doing that?

I don't want to pollute my work with bad science, and I am very hesitant to make any claims myself if I don't have good grounds for them. With complex interdisciplinary claims like the ones these two authors do, should I just not use them at all since it seems so hard to find out if they can be taken academically seriously?
Context: I'm a PhD student in Computational Social Science, so I'm very knowledgable about Complexity Science and related fields and how they are applied to design, architecture, organization science, and economics.  Also, my adviser is a leader in the field of Design Science, particularly how Cognitive Science and AI can be applied to understand design and designers.  Finally, I have a lot of domain knowledge regarding Pattern Languages and generative models of conception and design.


  Is there any way to find if I can trust these authors?


I've encountered many authors, researchers, and consultants who I have identified as "charlatans" when it comes to applying Complexity Science or other models or theories to social systems.  For the most part, they apply Complexity Science only in a metaphorical sense (e.g. "edge of chaos" concept), but have no basis or foundation in empirical or theoretical research.

But to determine whether any particular author is a charlatan or not, there is no substitute for you understanding the underlying theory or method. There is no reliable method for you to determine whether author A has a valid foundation in theory X unless you do your homework and develop a working understanding of theory X.  If, on the other hand, you stay with your position that "I'm not a mathematician", then you have no basis for deciding either way.  Looking at what other people say or citations will not help you, in an academic sense.

If you don't want to do the work to understand the mathematics, computational science, and formal methods that these author use, then just go another direction.  If you must include them in your papers, then just say that you have no opinion on their validity or significance because their methods/theories are beyond your grasp.

Finally, just because you don't understand the mathematical and computational methods these authors use their theories doesn't mean there is any "junk science" going on.  As Steven Covey (7 Habits) advised: "Seek first to understand."



Edit: Whether or not these authors have tenured positions at important Universities is not very good evidence regarding whether their "science" is "junk" or not.