Scientific Studies
Although scientific studies are a useful resource, they cannot always be taken as fact. In today’s society many people obtain there information about scientific through news articles or videos that are related to media reports. While these can sometimes be accurate, both the journalism and the scientific report can be manipulated to reflect inaccurate or false information.
When looking at a scientific study, one must double check it and be at times skeptical of the data. It is not enough to just prove there is a correlation between two variables, a study must prove there is a causation. Just proving a correlation is called “p-hacking” and occurs when a study gathers lots of data and manipulates it into finding something statistically significant but is most likely meaningless. The website “FifeThirtyEight” demonstrates how easy it can be to find statistical significance between variables that have no relevance to each other. Another way is that the scientific study in question uses a sample size that is too small. When sample size is not big enough, it makes it much harder to prove that results found in the study are similar to the rest of the population. Finally scientist’s success depends on them publishing findings, they might feel pressure to come up with eye catching, positive result in order to get published in major media outlets. Similarly, media outlets look for studies that will promote public interest and can be more motivated to cover reports that people find entertaining and beneficial to their lives. In addition to this, the media will not always give you full or accurate reporting of the scientific study. This reporting can leave out key details and variables that when left out, represent a false claim to what the actual scientific study is saying.
One personal experience I’ve had with hearing about questionable scientific studies was when I heard scientist discovered particles that could travel back in time by going faster than the speed of light. This made media circulation quickly but seemed farfetched since some outlets were covering it by saying time travel was proved possible. However when the study was checke , it was found to have given false reports due to inaccurate measurements. One way to avoid using false scientific studies in research is to make sure that the study in question comes from a reliable and well respected sources like academic journals. Another way would be to look at the actual study itself and make sure that it meets certain qualification like large enough sample size and actually proves statistical significance through analysis of the P-value.
