Comments on: How to read a scientific study http://www.stumptuous.com/how-to-read-a-scientific-study Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:03:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: Gwen http://www.stumptuous.com/how-to-read-a-scientific-study/comment-page-1#comment-4593 Gwen Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:09:45 +0000 #comment-4593 I love this article. Articles like this should appear everywhere in reference to every topic and every child should be required to take a class. I want to add one thing to keep in mind when reading studies and that is your inability to completely trust yourself. Confirmation bias is human, natural and strong. Everybody wants to believe they are right. Therefore, you will be more likely to accept a study that confirms a previous belief than one that disproves it. If you have been taking supplements your whole life and recommending them to everybody you know, it will be insanely difficult to accept that they do nothing for you, even in the face of mountains of evidence. Being demonstrably wrong has been shown time and time again to be an insanely uncomfortable and stressful position for a human to be in. We will do some seriously dishonest stuff to avoid that feeling. Do not beat yourself up about that. Open minded people are not people who are immune to confirmation bias. Open minded people are people who are aware of confirmation bias and make every good faith effort to guard against it ruling their opinions. What I mean is, do not use this list as a tool with which to make a case against any study you wish were wrong. If you find yourself trying to distrust a study that is making you uncomfortable, back off and take a deep breath. If you really want to get to the truth, or get as close to the truth as our limited humanity allows, you have to be honest with yourself first. I love this article. Articles like this should appear everywhere in reference to every topic and every child should be required to take a class.

I want to add one thing to keep in mind when reading studies and that is your inability to completely trust yourself. Confirmation bias is human, natural and strong. Everybody wants to believe they are right. Therefore, you will be more likely to accept a study that confirms a previous belief than one that disproves it.

If you have been taking supplements your whole life and recommending them to everybody you know, it will be insanely difficult to accept that they do nothing for you, even in the face of mountains of evidence.

Being demonstrably wrong has been shown time and time again to be an insanely uncomfortable and stressful position for a human to be in. We will do some seriously dishonest stuff to avoid that feeling.

Do not beat yourself up about that. Open minded people are not people who are immune to confirmation bias. Open minded people are people who are aware of confirmation bias and make every good faith effort to guard against it ruling their opinions.

What I mean is, do not use this list as a tool with which to make a case against any study you wish were wrong. If you find yourself trying to distrust a study that is making you uncomfortable, back off and take a deep breath.

If you really want to get to the truth, or get as close to the truth as our limited humanity allows, you have to be honest with yourself first.

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