Are you looking at scientific research?
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 [...]
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 as case studies of individuals’ experiences, which may not include any facts or figures.
Often, a personal story won’t be based on any credible scientific research at all. For instance, a website that sells a cure for cancer that uses magnets might include stories of people claiming they’ve benefitted from it, even though no human study of “magnet therapy” has ever been done.
Anecdotes are not representative of the wider population, and so cannot be used to draw conclusions about whether other people will have the same experience.
If you are sent or come across anecdotal evidence, ask if there is any scientific research that you can see.
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 [...]
‘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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]