On Pseudo-Science and Anecdotes

Joel Spolsky has criticized the pseudo-science employed in some of the recent best sellers. I now feel guilty of reading all the books he has mentioned:

• Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat"


• Malcom Gladwell's "The Tipping Point


• Naseem Taleb's "The Black Swan"

Deep inside me, I also held the same opinion as Joel. But how would I have come to differentiate "pseudo-science" from "real-science" without reading such books?