The news is full of stories about »new research«, »groundbreaking studies«, and »scientific breakthroughs«.
One day you might read that the mystery of cancer has been solved, and the next you read that we might never find acure. What is true or false? And who can you trust?
Videnskab.dk has 10 years experience in navigating the jungle of scientificresearch and we want to share it with you.
To make it manageable we have boiled it down to 5 questions that you can ask yourself when you read about research in the news.
The five questions – and our best tips on how to answer them – make up what we call our ‘Manifesto’ and you can download it here:
\ The 5 questions
1. Is it solid research?
2. Where did you read about it?
3. What do the results mean?
4. Do the results agree
with other research?
5. Where does the money
come from?
The manifesto explains why those five questions are so important and how you can find the answers.
Armed with our manifesto, you can learn to spot whether the media outlet that you get your news from have done their job properly, and whether a story about new research carries weight or should be taken with a pinch of salt.
This manifesto is not intended to make you doubt science or scientists. On the contrary, we are mad about science, because it is the most trustworthy source of information that we have.
But scientific research is not the final truth. Rather, it is the best knowledge that we have right here, right now. Research is always associated with uncertainties, scientists often disagree with each other, and not all evidence is equally strong or reliable.
Learning how to be a critical consumer of science news, will help you to get the most out of the many ‘new research’ stories published each day. And it will give you a new appreciation of all the genuine knowledge that scientists produce.
