Posted by editor05 on Friday, May 01 @ 01:00:00 EDT (857 reads)
TheMother writes "After ranting and raving about the anti-vax movement and its total idiocy, I realized that there are a lot of people who just can't look at scientific information and separate out the real stuff from the drivel.
That's when I remembered that old Chinese proverb:
If you give a mom a scientific paper analysis, you protect her family for the day; if you teach a mom to analyze a scientific paper, you protect her family for a lifetime.
I think something got lost in translation, but you get the basic idea.
So, from time to time (as in, when some great example presents itself and I feel like doing the research), I will be posting some basic information on how to evaluate "scientific" data.
Let me preface this by noting: There's a LOT of bad science out there.
And then there's good science, hyped out of proportion by the media, who can turn even mediocre studies and insignificant results into major news events that get people like Jenny McCarthy all riled up.
"