Some of it is obviously absurd.
Like the research saying sniffing chocolate in the gym will increase your leg power. Or the study proving one trip away is worth a year of therapy.
They sound like something someone made up and stuck on Instagram for laughs, and they pretty much are.
Both are real examples of bad science.
The mechanism for spreading this is generally social media, where it’s easy to get away with random claims and exaggerations.
But for those searching for truths to back up their fears, it’s becoming so much easier to cite research and academic papers to make their cases.
Science journalist Rebekah White has written about the polluted information landscape for Newsroom, in a series called Planetary Solutions.
She talks to The Detail today about the increasingly harmful cases of ‘science’ being used to push causes and back up bias.
“Maybe it wasn’t so much the case 10 years ago but certainly today we know people are getting just as much information, if not more, from social media than they are from more typical media such as newspapers and magazines.
“There’s just fewer checks and balances on social media in terms of what you can say on it, so I’m seeing a lot of stuff pop up on social media that is just completely made up. It’s quite amazing,” she says.
“I think a lot of it comes down to how people feel and what they find important, what they value.
“If you have a particular point of view and there’s something you are worried about or you’re upset about, it’s been very easy to find and accumulate information that backs up your point of view.
“It’s easier and easier to find things that confirm the path of thinking that you’re already on.”
White says while she wouldn’t want to put a limit on curiosity, you need a lot of scepticism at the moment to navigate the internet.
Red flags for ‘research’ include it being a lone voice – genuine research is peer reviewed and replicated over and over again, a process which can take 60 years.
We should also look for the source of a study and who has funded it.
“It’s good to go in with your wits about you and this idea of not believing everything you read … or see. I think that’s really important at the moment.”
White says the fluoridation issue is one of the best examples of how science can be used badly.
“There’s a bunch of research that appears to show that fluoride is bad, which opponents of fluoride will often bring up and point towards and link to articles about why fluoride is bad and water fluoridation shouldn’t happen.
“And there is a set of studies that show a link between low IQ and water fluoridation. And it looks really bad. It looks like water fluoridation causes brain damage which it does, if you have heaps and heaps and heaps of fluoride in the water. But when you actually read those studies, the levels of fluoride in the water are so high that in order to brain damage yourself … you would have to drink so much fluoridated water in New Zealand. I don’t think you could do it.”
White says you would poison yourself with water consumption first.
There’s another aspect of the fluoride argument which is people not arguing about the same thing – it’s a case of facts versus values. People end up debating at cross-purposes, with one side arguing about whether anything should be added to the public water supply, and the other arguing the cause of preventing tooth decay.
Also on The Detail today we talk to Professor Stuart McNaughton from the University of Auckland. He is the former chief education scientific adviser for the Ministry of Education and has a background in developmental and educational psychology. He’s also the co-author of a report on misinformation and young people.
He says while internationally we don’t do a very good job of preparing students to spot the headline-grabbing stuff based on bad science, Kiwi 15-year-olds are near the top of the OECD in being able to think critically, computational problem solving and inquiry.
“These are strengths. We can build on what we’ve got,” he says.
McNaughton worries about the rapid changes in the curriculum at the moment. He believes there is a risk of losing the way our teachers are able to talk through and prepare students for media and information literacy skills, and developing the capability to see how believable or accurate information might be.
He takes seriously concerns about reducing the pace of change, allowing teachers to flourish in doing what they’ve been doing so well.
Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.
You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.
