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Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty
To be fair, scientific literature should be scrutinized as well.
The review of reviews could be biased. The reviews it was reviewing could be biased. The studies looked at by the reviews could be poor quality studies, with poor controls, confounding variables, poor internal/external validity, etc etc.
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Most definitely. Thats' why there are such things as reviews and metareviews and other secondary sources (which often can be both secondary and primary, it's kind of an arbitrary distinction).
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty
I've found that in trying to explain scientific method to those on CP who don't know it has caused the explanations to sound like studies and peer-reviewed literature should be accepted 100%, which is very far from true.
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The answer to any question I've found is always "it's complicated", nothing is ever as simple as it's made out to be.
I mean as long as something has made it through peer review and has been published in a good journal (define good!
) it should be "accepted", but accepted meaning the things done in it have merit for as far as they should be taken.
But throw in "it's complicated", because it's very easy to take something and take it out of context (which is what the media is so good at). A study might be interesting but ultimately contribute little to the overall view on something because of issues you mentioned, or the assumptions were flawed, or whatever.
Passing peer review is the beginning of science, not the end of it. It's the basis of establishing the body of work required to come to a strong conclusion.