The term "rule of thumb" comes from a time when it was legal to beat your wife with a stick as long as the stick was no thicker than the husband's thumb. Just returning a tidbit for all that you've given me :)

Actually, I beleive snopes refuted that "rule of thumb" legend....

I just have to say that the "rules of thumb" for determining bad science do have certain flaws. (And kudos to the author for admitting that.)

Specifically, rule #1. When you talk about scientific peer review, you're forgetting that "scientific community" is a collection of people who have certain personal and political agendas that are often at odds with the advancement of science.
Consider that most of the major scientific advances of the past several centuries were presented for peer review to the scientific elite of the day-- and were utterly rejected as false by the learned of the day. Sanitary practices, the germ theory of disease, Gregor Mendel's genetic theories, inoculation against smallpox... all were presented for peer review, all were rejected. Orville and Wilbur Wright were debunked by the Smithsonian as hoaxters--- even though the two inventors had hundreds of eyewitnesses and affidavits!

The "scientific peers" only changed their minds AFTER the discoverers went to the media and to the public, and amassed so many eyewitnesses that the scientists could no longer ignore it. And many of them went to their graves calling new discoveries "junk science." They were too loyal to what they had been taught when they were young, and too dedicated to preserving their reputation in their dotage, to countenance a new discovery of things.

It is not an accident that the greatest advances in science have been primarily by NON-professional scientists... who were more interested in discovery than in protecting their laurels.