Tag: scientific method

A Rough Guide to Types of Scientific Evidence

A Rough Guide to Types of Scientific Evidence

A Rough Guide to Types of Scientific Evidence
Click to enlarge

Today’s graphic looks at science in general, rather than just chemistry. It’s in a similar vein to the Rough Guide to Spotting Bad Science posted last year, but this time looking at the hierarchy of different types of scientific evidence. You might think science is science, but some evidence is ranked higher in the scientific community than others, and having an awareness of this can help you sort the science from the pseudoscience when it comes to various internet claims.

Read more

A Rough Guide to Spotting Bad Science

A guide to spotting bad science. The guide presents twelve points to consider when evaluating scientific studies, particularly those pertaining to medical or health claims. 
1. Sensationalised headlines
2. Misinterpreted results
3. Conflicts of interest
4. Correlation and causation
5. Unsupported conclusions
6. Problems with sample size
7. Unrepresentative samples used
8. No control group used
9. No blind testing used
10. Selective reporting of data
11. Unreplicable results
12. Non-peer reviewed material
Click to enlarge

A brief detour from chemistry, branching out into science in general today. This graphic looks at the different factors that can contribute towards ‘bad’ science – it was inspired by the research I carried out for the recent aluminium chlorohydrate graphic, where many articles linked the compound to causing breast cancer, referencing scientific research which drew questionable conclusions from their results.

Read more