Yesterday I did a brief overview of how science works.Today I am going to post some guidelines about one of the most popular scientific sites pubmed.com.It is a site which targets are mainly people occupied with the medical proffession.That site gets a lot of attention lately because of its use by the fitness world too in their combat against broscience.Don't expect a guide about how to use the site.It is actually very easy to navigate.You just search for the thing you want and every study done about it is presented in front of,internet magic I know.On the contrary this post is about some things you must be careful about when you draw conclusions about a subject there.
So to the point.
a)You may witness the following terms when reading a study there: in vivo and in vitro.In vivo means that the experiment was conducted on a live organism while in vivo means that it was conducted in a glass tube.I think it is obvious which one is the more reliable.
b)It is very important to check the sample of the study(if it has one).So you must see the number of people,the age of them ,their gender things like that.This way you can understand the application of the study on you.For example the results of a study which used elderly women can't be used by an athletic man for conclusions.
c)Finally even if everything seems okay about the credibility of the study you should check the result carefully.A result has the possibility of being a statistical error.Even if it is right you may consider how much a let's say 3% increase of a rate can affect somethin.It is not much .You may say it depends on what we are talking about but lets not forget that for every 3 there is a 97 chance that something else will happen..I hope it is clear what I imply.
Those three things are three easy ways to avoid the traps laid by the media when they present a medical study which was published there.They should be enough for a person with common sense.
So to the point.
a)You may witness the following terms when reading a study there: in vivo and in vitro.In vivo means that the experiment was conducted on a live organism while in vivo means that it was conducted in a glass tube.I think it is obvious which one is the more reliable.
b)It is very important to check the sample of the study(if it has one).So you must see the number of people,the age of them ,their gender things like that.This way you can understand the application of the study on you.For example the results of a study which used elderly women can't be used by an athletic man for conclusions.
c)Finally even if everything seems okay about the credibility of the study you should check the result carefully.A result has the possibility of being a statistical error.Even if it is right you may consider how much a let's say 3% increase of a rate can affect somethin.It is not much .You may say it depends on what we are talking about but lets not forget that for every 3 there is a 97 chance that something else will happen..I hope it is clear what I imply.
Those three things are three easy ways to avoid the traps laid by the media when they present a medical study which was published there.They should be enough for a person with common sense.
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