You know the type. A slick and oily character, quintessentially male, who wears a cheap suit, has greasy hair and talks way too fast as he tries to sell you something you don't want or need. History is full of the breed who unwittingly takes advantage of everyone, but who are easy to finger if you know what to look for.

The problem is, today's purveyors of snake oil are much more sophisticated and harder to spot. They come in all shapes, sizes, and genders, as well as disguised as faceless corporations. They are selling us everything, from stuff we don't need to ideas that will jeopardize our future, and they have been trained in the best techniques that modern psychology has to offer.

By way of illustration, I recently received a copy of the Farm Journal, put out by the Indiana Farm Bureau. It was filled with articles about biofuels, and all of them spoke of it in glowing terms. Always one to question things that sound too good to be true, I began to do a little checking, and came upon a motherlode of information. The Internet was filled with every conceivable viewpoint on the topic, from totally positive to totally negative, with lots in the middle.

I looked at Inspire and Proquest, two online library databases, and found more information than I could read in a lifetime. What's the truth here, I asked myself. Is this one of those things that's too good to be true? In my digging, I found that this was indeed the only conclusion I could draw. (See the last issue of the Bloomington Alternative.)

How does one get to the truth of things, if there is such a thing? And how does one go about the business of sifting through the mounds of often-contradictory information to come to an approximation of "right." And is "wrong," perhaps, just based on frame of reference? I teach college students how to write research papers, and these questions are always in the fore. While most things are simply a matter of taste and have no great moral imperative, some issues are important. Those are the ones we need to carefully assess.

A first rule of thumb is to look at the money trail. Who profits? Just because someone will make money with something doesn't make it wrong. But if someone is selling you something, they will frequently take great pains to hide any of the negative aspects from you. The Farm Journal articles, for instance, had nothing negative to say about biofuels. They were all full-speed-ahead optimistic.

In addition, one of the articles used information from the Union of Concerned Scientists to back the notion that biofuels are good, When I checked, however, I found that they didn't look at most of what UCS had reported, much of it negative.

Obviously, the Farm Bureau represents the agribusiness interests who will profit from increased use of biofuels. But what about independent sources like Avery Lovins and Paul Hawken, both of whom have stated publicly that they see biofuels as part of the energy future. They are considered environmentally friendly, and neither is profiting from the sale of biofuels. However, when I considered their frame of reference, being a natural capitalism in which economic growth is seen as desirable (something I don't ascribe to) I noted that this colored their analysis. They are selling ideas.

I then looked at major environmental groups (tricky because some of them are fronts for corporate interests). One of them, the National Resource Defense Council, took the position on biofuels of full speed ahead. Here was a mainstream environmental group that didn't seem to be looking at all the facts either. Even Al Gore mentioned switching to biofuels in his things to do to stop global warming list. So who are we to believe?

While establishing an author's frame of reference is another step in finding the truth, there is no substitute for basic research. I had to look at what ethanol is and how it is produced. I had to search for statistics about how much land it takes and how much it costs to produce. I had to double-check the facts that I was finding. Who was compiling them? Were they reputable? I was led to other issues, like pesticide and chemical use and food security — something that most biofuels proponents were ignoring.

As I began to establish my own frame of reference, and as I looked at the various pro and con positions, I was able to sift through the plethora of information to come up with what I believe to be the "right" position: If long-term prosperity is important, then we move slowly on biofuels.

All this takes time — lots of it — and a will to learn more. My students complain that they don't have time. They work, they go to school, they have families. I understand. Time is something many of us don't have enough of. But if we want to recognize the snake oil sellers among us, we must take the time. They look like ordinary politicians, business people, and often they inspire us to trust them. They tell us that we will benefit from what they are selling.

To expose them we can go to source watch ( ... ) , and we can check the "about us" section of a website. It pays to be vigilant about where information comes from. It also helps to have a well-developed bullshit detector, something that we need to cultivate in these days of doublespeak and Orwellian language. To find the truth is like working a jigsaw puzzle, piecing together bits of information from many sources to create a pattern that makes sense.

But we must always question the rightness of an action in terms of our highest values. It goes without saying that clean water and air, a plentiful food supply and healthy communities are benchmarks on everyone's list. These things are priceless, and anything that potentially jeopardizes them should be suspect.

It's been said that you can't cheat an honest man. Perhaps if we are true to our highest values it will be harder to be hoodwinked by any snake oil salesmen no matter how clever their disguise. In the final analysis, we must be wary of sellers. The truly good things in life don't need to be sold us. We know in our hearts what we need.

Jeanne Melchior teaches at Vincennes University Jasper Campus. She is also president of Protect Our Woods, a southern Indiana environmental advocacy group. She can be reached at melchior@psci.net.