- So can you help us understand how to recognize like great science and how to distinguish it from kind of a flashy headline that could be easily misunderstood, please?

- Well, first of all, it's really critical to say what source are you looking at when you're seeing this flashy headline?

Is this in fact a well established journalistic source that's been around a while that has a certain professional staff and a track record?

Or is this something that just popped up in Facebook from somebody who's quoting an anecdote and trying to tell you that answers everything?

Be very careful of those.

And then, okay, what are they actually referring to?

Is this a research study?

Is it published?

Is it published in a peer review journal?

Which means other experts have looked at it and believe the conclusions are legitimate.

That's a good place to start.

And then, okay, watch the language.

Anything that sounds really hyperbolic, be very careful about you want something a little more sober.

That's where headlines get to be a problem because the journalists will all tell you they write the story and then somebody else writes the headline, whoever that somebody else is, we never get told.

And their goal is to get eyeballs to look at this story.

And so it always sort of takes the level of ratchet excitement, ratchet it up a bit.

And that's, yeah, don't stop at the headline then Keep going.

Now let's be clear.

Science is a work in progress.

Yes.

And so that story you read today in a peer reviewed journal that seemed to have all the right criteria and had an interesting conclusion may be disproved right Next month or next year.

And that's okay.

That's the way it's supposed to be.

Yeah.

What you can say is that science is self-correcting.

We want them to be skeptical as all of us should be, but we also want them to be excited about the truth, knowing that truth is there.

There really is such a thing as truth that maybe is not so popular these days.

- Boy, let's underline that.

Yeah.

Stop here everyone.

- Yeah.

Especially for a scientist, you couldn't be a scientist if you didn't believe that there is objective truth to be discovered.

And our goal as good detectives is to try to figure out what it is.

Yeah.

And sometimes we get false clues and we make mistakes and we go down a blind alley.

But ultimately we know there is an answer.

And if we do everything right and other people help us along, we're gonna get that answer.

Yeah.

And then we add to that constitution of knowledge and that builds the case for people having a better chance of achieving health.