Stop Listening to Media Research
Media research looks cool, but is actually pretty misleading.
![[online article, with the headline Your Cell Phone May Well Be Making One of Your Thumbs Bigger, followed by a photo of two hands working on a cell phone, holding, and tapping]](http://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/207308/images/odud-textingbiggerthumb.PNG)
![[online article, with the headline Is a Dog's Mouth Cleaner Than a Human's?, followed by a photo of a black, brown, and white dog with its nose pointed toward the camera]](http://libapps.s3.amazonaws.com/accounts/207308/images/odud-dogsmouth.PNG)
They're either driven by surveys ("Do you think your thumb is larger?") or driven by reporting, discussing the topic from the popular perspective rather than describing scientific research. If they interview a person rather than describe a method of how they researched the topic, the article is more popular than scientific.
Not all scientific studies are created equal...
Even Scientific Research
- studies involving human subjects implicate more than animal/cell resarch
- watch out for epidemiological studies
- correlation versus causation
IS There An Objective Truth?
The most objective truths can be found in randomized, controlled trials which happen to human subjects from a variety of social/economic/genetic/health backgrounds