Ask for Evidence infographic
If you’re not sure about something you’ve read or seen, follow these simple steps to #AskforEvidence? [...]
Vested interests can distort research in different ways, from directly setting up research questions that are biased towards a particular outcome, to selecting only certain results for publication, to the more subtle influences on what conclusions to emphasise.
So it is reasonable to ‘follow the money’ and know who’s funded the research that you’re looking at. In scientific journals academics should always disclose their ‘interests’.
But vested interests aren’t really much of a guide to what, ultimately, we should believe. The best research in the world could be conducted by the least popular or most vested organisation, and vice versa: people with no apparent bias can get things terribly wrong.
If you’re not sure about something you’ve read or seen, follow these simple steps to #AskforEvidence? [...]
I’ve been Asking for Evidence for a couple of months now and it’s interesting how organisations respond to it. I’ve had an array of responses: Polite but dismissive….. First up [...]
Every month there are dozens of news reports about medical breakthroughs and wonder drugs. The internet is cluttered with adverts and chat-room conversations testifying to ‘amazing’ benefits. [...]
Politicians like to claim a lot of things, from how they’ve reduced unemployment to how they plan on investing in renewable energy, but how prepared are they to provide the [...]
There is a system used by scientists to decide which research results should be published in a scientific journal. This system, called peer review, subjects scientific research papers to independent [...]
If someone asks you something and you don’t know the answer, what do you do? You Google it. The internet is one the most powerful tools at our disposal, and [...]