Ask for Evidence infographic
If you’re not sure about something you’ve read or seen, follow these simple steps to #AskforEvidence? [...]
If you’re not sure about something you’ve read or seen, follow these simple steps to #AskforEvidence? [...]
Every month there are dozens of news reports about medical breakthroughs and wonder drugs. The internet is cluttered with adverts and chat-room conversations testifying to ‘amazing’ benefits. [...]
There is a system used by scientists to decide which research results should be published in a scientific journal. This system, called peer review, subjects scientific research papers to independent [...]
I’ve been Asking for Evidence for a couple of months now and it’s interesting how organisations respond to it. I’ve had an array of responses: Polite but dismissive….. First up [...]
Politicians like to claim a lot of things, from how they’ve reduced unemployment to how they plan on investing in renewable energy, but how prepared are they to provide the [...]
If someone asks you something and you don’t know the answer, what do you do? You Google it. The internet is one the most powerful tools at our disposal, and [...]
This will be an unusual election, and there’s a danger that candidates and parties will see backing up claims with evidence as less of a concern. But we can all [...]
If you haven’t yet signed an online petition yourself, no doubt you’ve seen a few doing the rounds on social media. Their popularity reflects an increasing appetite for engagement in [...]
On 1st November 2016 one hundred people went to parliament. They listened to 15 stories from people across the country on why evidence matters to them, and heard responses from [...]
EU policy is made within the Brussels bubble, with Brussels-based think tanks and Brussels-based lobbyists. Even civil society organisations at EU level rarely speak to the people that they represent. [...]
This page will help you work out if something is based on scientific research or not. It could be useful if you’ve received a response having asked for evidence, or [...]
No matter how exciting or compelling a new piece of scientific or medical research is, you should always ask: Is it peer reviewed? And if not, why not? Journals have [...]
There are a few basic types of scientific study that, once you know what they are, give you a much clearer way to question headlines or claims based on research. [...]
Animal studies are a useful way of modelling what happens in the human body, so they are central to the development of new medicines and cures, and to understanding human [...]
‘In vitro’ (meaning ‘in glass’) studies are where scientists investigate chemicals, microorganisms (e.g. bacteria) or tissue (e.g. skin cells in isolation) in test tubes or petri dishes in a lab. [...]
Epidemiologists (a kind of scientist) study how often diseases occur in different groups of people, and why. Their studies on populations will often report an association between a substance or [...]
These are the ‘gold standard’ of scientific studies because they are ‘controlled’. This means that steps have been taken to try to eliminate things that might have an influence beyond [...]
Drugs or treatments will pass through several stages of clinical trial before they are approved for widespread use. This is because the best way to find out whether a treatment [...]
This video explains why systematic reviews are important and how they are done. (Video prepared by the Cochrane Consumers and Communication Group, La Trobe University and generously support by Cochrane [...]
Is the study relevant? Just because you’ve seen or been sent a reputable scientific paper, you shouldn’t assume the research actually supports the claim, even if someone has said it [...]
No matter what the scientific study, at some point scientists have to use statistics to interpret their results, and form their conclusions. Unfortunately, scientists can be as bad at statistics [...]
Journalists often use anecdotes or personal stories to make their stories seem more relevant to people’s lives or emphasise why a piece of scientific research matters. They are usually presented [...]
Surveys collect information from a specific group of people, or a random sample of a wider population. A well-conducted survey can provide useful insights into people’s opinions or behaviour, but [...]
Vested interests can distort research in different ways, from directly setting up research questions that are biased towards a particular outcome, to selecting only certain results for publication, to the [...]
Following an eye test at Vision Express, I was informed that although my level of myopia had not changed, there was a very small degree of astigmatism in one eye [...]
When a friend told me that Marks & Spencer had started to sell ‘MRSA resistant’ pyjamas, I decided to look into the claims and find out whether there was any [...]
Looking for evidence about Finitro Forte Plus? Peter asked the company for the evidence behind their claim - here's his story. Want resources to understand evidence? Visit here. Want to [...]