Comments on: What is Scientific Research?

By: Brad Pilon

Brad Pilon — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:10:15 +0000

I’ll do my best!

By: rachel

rachel — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:21:57 +0000

brad, this is exactly the way to reach the younger, more insulin sensitive crowd. please keep up the good work, it could save a generation! if this info had reached me at 28 instead of 40, oh what a different life i would have had. keep on keepin’ on

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:12:24 +0000

I love your posts Brad! With all of the conflicting information out there, I was wondering if I need to worry about eating too FEW calories. I am not talking about anorexia or anything that drastic. I have heard that if you eat too few that your metabolism slows dramatically. Reason I ask is that I have been using the ESE for a while and can not seem to break past 214.

Thanks!
Michael

By: Rusty Rambo

Rusty Rambo — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:26:07 +0000

Hey Brad, deep stuff man, the truth can never be answered for everyone and there is only one true expirment that can work for each individual. That experiment as we all know, is trial and error. Through time and dedication, manipulation and alteration. We can test ourselves to the limits and apply new routines when all else fails.

By: Rahim

Rahim — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:02:20 +0000

Great post Brad. Excellent analogy with the shadow. It reminds me of something that my martisl arts teacher said to me years ago. He said “In the beginning, God spoke the truth in a circle of 360 people. They all heard the Same Truth, but each on saw it in a different way from the other.

By: Lani

Lani — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:26:54 +0000

Brad,

Know what you mean. At San Francisco State University I’ve had the opportunity to be directly involved with research projects and it can leave you wondering how researchers ever come to any accurate conclusions. More often than not, we find out more about what we DON’T know than what we DO.

Another nail on the head. And a great allegory to the shifting relativity of so much in life altogether.

Plus a great admonition about the skipped hearbeats with each new health headline at the checkout stand!

Salud,
Lani

By: Art

Art — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:52:34 +0000

If you want to be truly stunned, check out the health care ‘research’ that spews out of politically motivated and paid for organizations. One of the more quoted pieces is the U.S. is 37th in health care. Our infant mortality is worse than (insert insanely poor 3rd world country here).

Just for kicks, I looked into infant mortality in detail. What I found regarding how babies are counted, when they are not counted and how the stats are fudged just shocked me. Not so much that this was done (after all, it’s politics) but that no one bothered to point out the glaring flaws that destroy any of the regurgitated stats.

I see this in economics as well. Depending on who we are trying to demonize, we merely look up a few stats and rip away. To anyone with any education in economics, it’s painful to listen to. I’ve heard things that are so absurd that it actually makes my stomach hurt. And it goes on ad nauseam.

I imagine anyone with education or interest in a certain field finds their neurons assaulted when reading through the studies and the reports that arise from those studies.

By: Alfred

Alfred — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:07:35 +0000

I think there would be much better information out there if people weren’t too busy keeping their ego from getting hurt. People have to admit that they’re wrong, that what you think is true today might be challenged tomorrow. “All I know is that I know nothing”, Socrates said. This is what I tell myself all the time.

By: Grok

Grok — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:40:26 +0000

It bugs me how people just take the research as the gospel without looking into it past the few manipulated percentages. @Kaizan was pretty on point.

By: Todd I. Stark

Todd I. Stark — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:32:54 +0000

The skills for understanding research are daunting for most people. So they rely on skimming and rior expectations and soundbite summaries. Often this gives a completely erroneous impression. To read researh you need not only critical thinking skills in general but also general familiarity with types of methodologies and protocols, a reasonable grasp of statistics, and some background in the line of research that led up to the study you are reading. And you have to want to learn something from the evidence, not just be reading it because you don’t like the conclusion and want to debunk it. These are pre-requisites for science literacy just as important as reading science textbooks.

There’s a need for scientifically trained journalists and science writers to help translate the work of researchers accurately, because not all scientists are effective at writing for the general audience. This level of science writing has unfortunately gone down along with the level of political journalism. There are a few good sources left but you have to know how to identify them. Filtering well is one of the keys to living in an age of information surplus.

There should be more courses on the skills for understanding research because it over time becomes crucial for our understanding of ourselves. In site of being so fond of tech, and science headlines the current level of science literacy, in both the most basic sense of textbook knowledge and my extended sense above, it pathetic in my opinion.

That’s why I admire Brad, he is one of the folks that can serve as a bridge from researchers to the rest of us.

Thanks for this post, and for the excellent work you do, Brad!