The “verifier” method — used by psychologist Gordon Rugg to reveal the Voynich manuscript as a hoax — may revolutionize the scientific method and help solve seemingly unsolvable mysteries, such as the origins of the universe or the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

The new method detects erroneous reasoning based on pattern-matching, bias, lack of familiarity with other fields of science, differing definitions of key terms, and other factors. It uses psychologists’ tools — elicitation techniques, the literature on human error, decisionmaking models, formal logic and reasoning — to create a novel form of problem-solving: a scientific method to verify the methods of science.