I've done my own research

More or less I'm just going to republish this as it stood; in the unlikely place of Facebook (link) However in case that goes away or you don't have Facebook here it is. 

NOTE: emphasis and formatting mine:

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“Do your research!!!”

Here’s the thing. Research is a learned skill; it is hard, it is nuanced and complex, and it is true that the majority of people would not even know where to begin or even HOW to do [their own] research.

Research is NOT:

• Googling,
• doom scrolling your FB newsfeed, or 
• binge serial watching what the YouTube algo feeds you or 
• reading Reddit / 4Chan 😖 

to search for the results you are hoping to find to be “true.” These are called confirmation biases, and are quickly and easily ruled out when doing actual research.

A post credited to Linda Gamble Spadaro, a licensed mental health counselor in Florida, sums this up quite well:

Please stop saying you researched it.

You didn’t research anything and it is highly probable you don’t know how to do so.

Did you compile a literature review and write abstracts on each article? Or better yet, did you collect a random sample of sources and perform independent probability statistics on the reported results? No?

Did you at least take each article one by one and look into the source (that would be the author, publisher and funder), then critique the writing for logical fallacies, cognitive distortions and plain inaccuracies?

Did you ask yourself why this source might publish these particular results? Did you follow the trail of references and apply the same source of scrutiny to them?

No? Then you didn’t…research anything. You read or watched a video, most likely with little or no objectivity. You came across something in your algorithm manipulated feed, something that jived with your implicit biases and served your confirmation bias, and subconsciously applied your emotional filters and called it proof.”

This doesn’t even go into institutional review boards (IRB’s), also known as independent ethics committees, ethical review boards, or touch on peer-review, or meta-analyses.

To sum it up, a healthy dose of scepticism is/can be a good thing…as long as we are also applying it to those things we wish/think to be true, and not just those things we choose to be sceptical towards, or in denial of.

Most importantly, though, is to apply our best critical thinking skills to ensure we are doing our best to suss out the facts from the fiction, the myths, and outright BS in pseudoscience and politics.

Misinformation is being used as a tool of war and to undermine our public health, and it is up to each of us to fight against it.

PS: this video emerged on YouTube in late August of 2023 by Sabine

I strongly recommend watching it in full.

Next from this lecture in what amounts to a teams 50 years work on a topic we get this sound advice:

https://youtu.be/7mOvJbmpG6A?t=569

From the transcript starting at 9:31

Now before I present any clinical evidence let me just make three principles about research.

First of all my boss in the my early years in Cardiff, Archie Cochran, of this University, he very effectively publicized the principle that; in evaluating evidence it's essential at all available evidence is considered and never just a selection.

It's awfully easy to have a hypothesis and spend a Friday afternoon going through the literature and finding one or two Publications that show the same kind of thing as we're looking for in that particular hypothesis. That is so misleading it should never be done. So he went to enormous efforts as you will see in what follows that we would collect all the available evidence.

Then the follower of other modern medicines William Moser he said I think it sums up "medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability". In the end science never proves anything, always [it is] another explanation and conclusions about a particular hypothesis [and] can only be established at best to be Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

Don't look to me for any certainty in what I say but I think we've established a number of important steps which go beyond Reasonable Doubt.

Sage words.

Lastly a new skill (for anyone not still in high school, where at least in Australia this is now part of the curriculum) is the concept of Critcal Thinking. Its outlined well at Monash Uni's site here.

Becoming an expert takes a lot more than just time, it takes feedback that you were wrong or confirmation that you are correct.

Best Wishes