he set about investigating the trials and confirmed that they hadn’t ever happened. They all had a lead author who purported to come from an institution that didn’t exist
To me, this doesn't mean that simple distrust is the answer. These are basic issues that should be revealed with even minimal due diligence during the editorial & peer review process.
Peer reviewers and Journal Editors should brink a skeptical mindset to article submissions from the outset before they're ever accepted for publication.
After that? Well, whenever research is on an emerging topic there is a certain amount of scientific skepticism you should use. Same if results go against an established consensus on a topic. However this is where the "replication problem" enters the picture because replicating research has a lower status.
When it comes to media reporting, things get even more complicated. New science is messy. You only have to look at COVID research for the past 1.5 years, and when it's an issue of such public urgency, EVERY development hits the public eye, pulling back the curtain on the sausage factor. Because new science is rarely "Hey look what I discovered!" followed by "Yay we all agree!" It's more of a conversation or dialectic, with ever more research revealing the picture a bit more until there's enough to be confidence in a given interpretation. And even there, work proceeds on alternatives.
The above is very much NOT how science is taught to the public in schools. You learn "Darwin Discovered Evolution!", not the significant years-long process of researchers arguing it out, sometimes even with heated vitriol. You learn "Newton Discovered Gravity!", not all of the complexities and disagreements that continue even to today.
Out education systems have failed society when it comes to truly understanding the scientific process. This is why distrust of science increased. Because in past decades awareness of scientific advances often only reached the public after at least part of the sausage was made, meaning now it looks like it's descended into total disarray.
To me, this doesn't mean that simple distrust is the answer. These are basic issues that should be revealed with even minimal due diligence during the editorial & peer review process.
Peer reviewers and Journal Editors should brink a skeptical mindset to article submissions from the outset before they're ever accepted for publication.
After that? Well, whenever research is on an emerging topic there is a certain amount of scientific skepticism you should use. Same if results go against an established consensus on a topic. However this is where the "replication problem" enters the picture because replicating research has a lower status.
When it comes to media reporting, things get even more complicated. New science is messy. You only have to look at COVID research for the past 1.5 years, and when it's an issue of such public urgency, EVERY development hits the public eye, pulling back the curtain on the sausage factor. Because new science is rarely "Hey look what I discovered!" followed by "Yay we all agree!" It's more of a conversation or dialectic, with ever more research revealing the picture a bit more until there's enough to be confidence in a given interpretation. And even there, work proceeds on alternatives.
The above is very much NOT how science is taught to the public in schools. You learn "Darwin Discovered Evolution!", not the significant years-long process of researchers arguing it out, sometimes even with heated vitriol. You learn "Newton Discovered Gravity!", not all of the complexities and disagreements that continue even to today.
Out education systems have failed society when it comes to truly understanding the scientific process. This is why distrust of science increased. Because in past decades awareness of scientific advances often only reached the public after at least part of the sausage was made, meaning now it looks like it's descended into total disarray.