Scientists: how do you fact-check? Where do you find evidence-based info?

[Watchagotcha]

I had lunch with a friend yesterday. At one point we talked about going grey (both in our 40’s). She said she was reluctant to dye her hair because of putting lots of «toxic chemicals» on her skin. She often comes out with things like this - coconut oil to cure lots of things, apple cider vinaigre to restore her gut flora etc. To my sceptical mind it all sounds like snake oil.

But how do I check these things out? I have a science degree, though I was never good at statistics. I’ve read Bad Science, I follow SciMoms etc. Yet when it comes to checking out any of these claims quickly and easily, I don’t know where to go.

So, sceptics of MN: what are your trusted sources? How do you research these kinds of claims - many of which pop up on here all the time!

checking out any of these claims quickly and easily

It's hard to do a thorough fact check quickly or easily, but.....

1. Cochrane reviews. Reasonably reputable meta analyses of research, Inc comments on how good the quality of the research has been to date. Google "Cochrane review . There's usually a short version.

2. harder work than Cochrane but you'll get info on a wider range of topics - Google Scholar. It's Google for research papers. Not all of the papers are open access but a lot of them are. Obviously you have to make your own judgement about the quality of the research you are reading.

Just out of curiosity, I put "Apple Cider vinegar gut flora" into Google Scholar. Just from looking at the titles of the papers, it appears that Apple Cider vinegar can indeed benefit your gut health - if you are a carp or a zebrafish...

Trace the claims back. A quick Google fir the claim plus 'evidence' should get some articles that link to actual peer reviewed published papers, which you should be able at least to see the abstracts of.

Mostly though you'll get links to irrelevant articles, usually dye contains chemical x, x can kill cells when dumped on them in vitro, ergo x in dye will kill you...

If it's not an in vivo study of similar doses, ignore it.

It's generally easier if you have access to Web of Science or Scopus or similar research aggregation resources. It means you can search journals and authors and evaluate researchers' track records. However, you need to pay attention to what journal research is being published in so check things like the impact factor and how often a researcher or paper has been cited.
For instance, I would trust research in Philos. Trans. A. (Impact factor 3.0) more than the Journal of Creation Research (impact factor 0).

Hmm thank you for that. I think, as someone with a vaguely science background, I would be able to work through some of this.

Do you know of anything more accessible? It seems like there is a tidal wave of Goop-type pseudoscience bollocks out there, and the effort / level of science knowledge required to counteract it is way out of reach if the average person.

Google Scholar isn't a bad first stop - I think anyone can make an account. It does tend to over-cite researchers - sometimes it counts a citation twice if it's in a pre-print and accepted paper - my citations are 50% higher in Google Scholar than in Scopus for instance.

Just googling a publication can throw up links and its impact factor and there are open-access journals out there but you might need to hunt them.

She often comes out with things like this - coconut oil to cure lots of things, apple cider vinaigre to restore her gut flora etc

For things like this, there is almost certainly very little research pointing one way or the other. It is rare that anyone will fund large scale studies into things like coconut oil or apple cider vinegar because they are not patentable.

If you dig into it most likely you will find a handful of small scale studies looking at specific effects of these products that then got extrapolated by the woo merchants into being some kind of "cure all".

Pubmed database or Google Scholar. Lots of things will be behind a paywall but you should be able to read the abstract.

That said, it’s not quite as straightforward as just entering in some search terms. Someone has to have actually done the research and gotten a publication accepted to a peer reviewed journal, meeting, etc about said topic. This also means someone must have funded the research to begin with. There are a lot contingencies involved in all of that. Sometimes you just won’t find much of anything out there. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an important thing worth studying. Just that no one has been able to.

Google scholar. Reading peer reviewed sources from reputable journals. Always check sources quoted on articles and go back to the source. If there are multiple academics journals supporting a theory I tend to believe it more.

I find the NHS website quite a good start if I can be bothered talking to those suckered into Paltrow science. It is also pretty easy to spot the style of blogs, which of course need no qualification or brains at all to write. They are generally the ones which will sing the praises of magic cures, and the affiliate link at the end is the final giveaway.

look for places that aren't trying to sell you stuff, and you'll see it is all 'no evidence'.

anyone using the word 'toxin' is likely to be a fuckwit. 'chemicals' is a close second as anyone who listened at school knows the definition of that. look out for 'no chemicals' and check to see if they are selling anything containing water.

Thanks again for the links to counteract the Goop-tide!

www.askforevidence.org/index

This looks good as well, I haven't delved into it too deeply yet. It looks like it might be a bridge between the science and the public?

Shameless bump for those who want to fact-check all that very expensive and potential woo out there.