How I process crazy news about science

Written By Tamasen Fern

News headlines seem to fly at us all the time, sometimes we can get dizzy with all the happenings of the world. Processing so much news is not easy! Especially news about science – there are so many fields of science with so much information. Here’s a place to start if science news is starting to make your head spin.

There’s a lot of news out there! Photo by Ludovica Dri on Unsplash

Sometimes, we can choose to ignore the news, but a lot of it affects us, so we may need to process news whether we want to or not. For all the what-seems-like crazy news about science out there, I check if the news article fits into four categories before accepting, processing, and sharing the news:

  • Salacious

  • Scary Headline

  • Secret

  • Selling Something

By salacious, I mean gossipy – something that I could imagine being said with an arched eyebrow and a judgmental tone laced with faint shock. I imagine lunch on a shaded patio downtown, sipping a lemonade, legs crossed, saying, “Did you know that Really Big Biotech Company has been keeping the secret that their most widely used technology has been causing major problems to human health/the environment??” *lowers sunglasses to show perfectly offended and disapproving expression* The follow-up response to this gossip then is polite dismay, followed by, “I just knew they were the kind of company that would do that!” Just think to yourself when you read a headline, “Could I imagine a conversation where someone says this as gossip?” If so, then check sources before immediately believing or sharing the news.

The next category of scientific news that I am sure to always check their sources is any story with an overly scary headline. Scary headlines draw clicks and views (1), so these news articles are more likely to be made up just for the traffic. Remember, a lot of scary science is already known – the sun causes cancer, global warming is an enormous problem, animals can carry deadly diseases, etc. Science is a very incremental process, so the likelihood that a really shocking scary thing that’s being reported all at once is low. Of course, the last year and a half has been full of real science news that’s been scary, so this in only a guideline and reminder to check their sources. I don’t immediately discard this news, but I always check these news articles for their sources before believing or sharing them.

I am particularly wary of any science news claiming that a treatment, side-effect, life-saving technology, or something similarly big in science, is being kept secret. As scientists, we want to share our exciting important discoveries, not hide them. We want to help people, and we are definitely not paid enough to participate in conspiracies that can hurt people (2). Remember, the bigger the secret, the harder it is to keep – therefore, the likelihood of a large conspiracy of being true is low (3, 4). Many original sources to scientific conspiracies are people that make money by promoting the conspiracy (5), not to be confused with salaries from working a job that are necessary for paying bills). When someone is selling a conspiracy, they often have something to gain by getting me to believe their claims about secrets. Before believing and sharing, I always check the background sources for these science news articles that claim a secret is being kept.

Any claims about science to sell something make me suspicious.

I’m sure you’ve spotted the weird ads on web pages suggesting that “If you eat this one thing, your gut health will finally heal!” or “The one thing doctors won’t tell you about heart health!” I clicked one of these ads just to find out what’s up, and, let me tell you, it is a journey! They draw you in - first, there’s a series of personal stories from individuals suffering from a vague condition, an explanation on why that condition is slowly taking over your own health, someone in a white coat claiming to be a doctor, and then a great deal for their product to save your health.

Ads aren’t really news though, and they are fairly easy to spot and dismiss. So how can you tell if someone is selling you something if it’s not an ad? In this case, when you’re checking their sources because you noticed they’re stating something salacious, have a scary headline, or claim a secret is being kept, start with two things:

  1. Check their credentials. Are they an expert in the topic they’re talking about?

    Check to see if they’re listed as part of the team on their company’s website – what’s their job title? Their credentials? Check LinkedIn for their schooling. If their credentials and job don’t fit the topic they claim to know something about, I wouldn’t trust them unless they have true experts backing them up.

  2. Check what they could gain.

    For example, if people believed their statements were true, would people buy the products they’re selling? Even if they don’t even mention any products, you can always see if they have a website or Amazon store that would benefit from customers trusting their claims. If so, this is a conflict of interest, and the person or organization should state this conflict of interest clearly (6). Sometimes even if the conflict of interest is clear, there should be outside, impartial verification of their claims.

To make things complicated, a lot of scientific news, whether authentic or fake, seems to fit in these categories. To help you sift through what’s real or not, check their sources. If their sources:

  • are peer-reviewed journal articles

  • are confirmed by multiple sources in the news article

  • pertain to the topic or content of the news article

  • also include multiple cited sources themselves

Then you can be reasonably confident that the science news is reliable*.

 

Sometimes you need to take breaks from scrolling. Photo by Bohdan Maylove on Unsplash

 
 

Feel free to comment! I’m interested in anything you might add or questions you have! *There’s an option to include an email and a website to comment, but it’s not required* Just write in your name or a unique modifier.

Tamasen Fern
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