"Do your research -- and do it properly!"

There's a short article at the base of this post.  Thanks to Tony for publishing it on Facebook -- I had seen it before, but had forgotten how relevant it is not just for public health and trust in medical science, but also for our trust in "discoveries" and "breakthroughs" in many fields that are flagged up in press releases and in TV programmes.

"Do your research!"  is a fine exhortation aimed at ordinary people who tend simply to accept what is fed to them by the media, without ever having the patience or the skill to go back to the original sources and subject them to critical scrutiny.  Often they deem themselves "unqualified to scrutinise", and so they tend simply to trust those who are deemed to be experts.  That's one of the things that Carl Sagan was most concerned about when he bemoaned the inexorable slide into gullibility and superficiality.  (I suggest you simply put "Sagan" into the search box on this blog.)  But it goes deeper than that -- I reckon  we should modify the slogan to this:  "Do your research properly!" and aim it straight at MPP and his fellow conspirators who have played so fast and loose with the scientific method that we can hardly believe a word of what is contained in their publications.

Many people are swept along and convinced by the media reports of the "discoveries" of the "Stones of Stonehenge" project team, and by the words and images contained in glossy pop magazine articles, TV news reports and documentaries.  But how many of them, I wonder, have actually gone to the coal face and READ the three crucial research articles published in the journal "Antiquity"?

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/craig-rhosyfelin-a-welsh-bluestone-megalith-quarry-for-stonehenge/D1E66A287D494205D22881CBF1F6DDE8

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/megalith-quarries-for-stonehenges-bluestones/AAF715CC586231FFFCC18ACB871C9F5E

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/original-stonehenge-a-dismantled-stone-circle-in-the-preseli-hills-of-west-wales/B7DAA4A7792B4DAB57DDE0E3136FBC33

As I have said on many occasions, these are pseudoscientific articles in which evidence presentation, interpretation and foregone conclusions are so mixed up that they should never have got past serious referees and a serious editor -- and because of that they should never have found their way into print.  They need to be read and scrutinized by impartial people capable of critical thinking and who are not easily swayed by strong personalities and colourful narratives....... 

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HELL AND EARTH

June 25  · 

“Do your research!!!”

Here’s the thing. Research is a learned skill; it is hard, it is nuanced and complex, and it is true that the majority of people would not even know where to begin or even HOW to do [their own] research.

Research is NOT:

Googling, scrolling your FB newsfeed, or watching YouTube or 4Chan to search for the results you are hoping to find to be “true.” These are called confirmation biases, and are quickly and easily ruled out when doing actual research.

A post credited to Linda Gamble Spadaro, a licensed mental health counselor in Florida, sums this up quite well:

“Please stop saying you researched it.

You didn’t research anything and it is highly probable you don’t know how to do so.

Did you compile a literature review and write abstracts on each article? Or better yet, did you collect a random sample of sources and perform independent probability statistics on the reported results? No?

Did you at least take each article one by one and look into the source (that would be the author, publisher and funder), then critique the writing for logical fallacies, cognitive distortions and plain inaccuracies?

Did you ask yourself why this source might publish these particular results? Did you follow the trail of references and apply the same source of scrutiny to them?

No? Then you didn’t…research anything. You read or watched a video, most likely with little or no objectivity. You came across something in your algorithm manipulated feed, something that jived with your implicit biases and served your confirmation bias, and subconsciously applied your emotional filters and called it proof.”

This doesn’t even go into institutional review boards (IRB’s), also known as independent ethics committees, ethical review boards, or touch on peer review, or meta-analyses.

To sum it up, a healthy dose of skepticism is/can be a good thing…as long as we are also applying it to those things we wish/think to be true, and not just those things we choose to be skeptical towards, or in denial of.

Most importantly, though, is to apply our best critical thinking skills to ensure we are doing our best to suss out the facts from the fiction, the myths, and outright BS in pseudoscience and politics.

Misinformation is being used as a tool of war and to undermine our public health, and it is up to each of us to fight against it.