Case Study: Analyzing Scientific Claims
The scientific approach has resulted in an explosion of technology and knowledge about our world. However, when applied without attention to integrity – to ensuring rigor, thoroughness, and accuracy – even honest, well-meaning scientists can reach incorrect conclusions. Worse, the intentional misapplication of the scientific method, or the use of the trappings of scientific study to lend credence to a spurious idea (“pseudoscience”), is a powerful tool of deception, in which bad actors claim that deliberate misinformation resulted from an unbiased scientific process.
It is vitally important that we – ordinary folks – be able to critically evaluate scientific claims and assess their soundness.
In this paper, you will analyze a scientific claim, make your own assessments about its soundness, and defend those assessments.
Choose a contemporary piece or pieces of media that makes a claim about the world that claims to be scientific. (It doesn’t have to be specifically about physics or astronomy; your example may come from any field that purports to use the scientific process, including the social sciences, political science, and the like.)
You may write about either:
one piece of longer media, such as an article, a book, a long blog post, a website, or a longer video
a set of linked shorter pieces of media, such as short videos, tweets, infographics, and memes,
Your example needs to have at least the following properties:
Someone made a claim purporting to be the result of scientific study, or to represent its results
This claim was false or not well-founded
The incorrect claim resulted in some way from some failing in the process of science.
This might be because of an honest mistake
It might be because someone really should have been more careful
It might also be a result of deliberate deception or malice
As a reminder, common fallacies that you will find include:
Sampling bias: using a limited and biased data set that isn’t representative of the broader population
Overgeneralization: drawing broad conclusions from limited evidence (i.e. generalizing from a psychological study of American college students to all people)
Argument ad hominem: rejecting legitimate scientific findings based on who the scientists are, rather than considering the data itself
Ignoring refuting evidence: failing to consider or deliberately ignoring evidence that calls into question the claim being made
Manufacturing a controversy: attempting to erode public confidence in legitimate scientific conclusions by creating the appearance of a controversy when no real controversy exists
Sensationalism: conflating a demonstration that something is exciting with evidence that is true
So, what do I want you to do?
Write a short essay of 750-1500 words (2-3 pages single spaced; 3-6 pages double spaced) that discusses what happened, and describes in what way the principles of scientific integrity or rigor were compromised.
Your paper should also describe what “warning signs” someone else might observe that would hint that something is wrong. What questions should a skeptical audience (whether fellow scientists or the general public) have asked that could point out the flaws in the argument being made? This is especially important if you are discussing an example of deliberate misinformation: how could someone else have recognized that they were being lied to?
Finally, if the issue resulted from negligence or a mistake, rather than a deliberate attempt to deceive anyone, describe what the researchers should have done instead to ensure that they didn’t reach incorrect conclusions.
A few notes:
This topic may lead you into political territory. It is perfectly okay to have clear views. For instance, if you believe that one side of an issue has more merit than the other, you do not need to spend “equal time” articulating the position of the “other side” that you believe is faulty. (We will of course evaluate your work based on whether you state your positions well and thoughtfully, not whether the person grading your paper agrees with you!) However, your paper should focus on the process of science and how it has gone astray; it shouldn’t simply be an advocacy paper for a particular policy position.
You may write about a single experiment/claim, or a series of linked claims that form a coherent movement.
Case Study: Analyzing Scientific Claims
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