How to Tell When a Scientific Study Is Total B.S.

New studies are published every day claiming breakthroughs. But most of them are full of bad science. Here’s what to look out for.

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear,” wrote Edgar Allan Poe. (Or maybe Benjamin Franklin.) Somewhere in between is how you should approach new medical research.

Truth be told, most of the medical studies you read about are either not as astounding as they’re cracked up to be, or downright worthless. The more amazing the breakthrough or novel the insight into the workings of the human mind or body, the more skeptical I am about the report that trumpets it. Very few will withstand much scrutiny or the test of time.

“Countless studies are touted on websites promoting a seemingly limitless variety of products, services, alternative healing modalities, etc. that are revealed after a little digging to have never been published in a peer-reviewed journal, even a crappy one,” continued Dr. Jones. “They may be in-house studies performed by a company to show that their product has some benefit. They may have been presented at a conference but never accepted for publication. They could in fact be completely made up.”

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