- [Voiceover] Once someone has found out some information
or gone through experiment and obtained some data,
you have to somehow allow that information to be spread out
or that information to be disseminated to other individuals.
One of the major ways that scientific information
is disseminated, or spread around,
is through peer-reviewed journals.
Now these peer-reviewed journals
are exactly as they sound, peers.
So other scientists are gonna go through,
look at the data, look at the writings,
and either approve the article or say,
"This doesn't quite add up,"
or "Something's not quite right here."
What this allows is a whole panel,
a whole grouping of experts,
to see an article, to see the information
before it's publicly put out for publication.
And by doing this, the results are assumed to be valid
only for the conditions of the experiment.
Remember, the conditions are what it was run under,
what was the temperature during the experimentation,
what was the population size,
what was the sampling size.
There's so many variables.
So you could only assume, only rationalize,
that the data is valid for those exact,
specific
conditions
it was run under.
Now, you also will find information in the popular press.
Newspapers, could find it in different magazines.
Do you think these would be as accurate
as the peer-reviewed journals would be?
Some might be, but some might not be.
A lot of times, any reputable popular press
will have someone look through and make sure
it's valid before it's printed.
A lot of times, the reputable popular press
actually gets their information
from some peer-reviewed journals.
But just because it's in the newspapers,
that means it's 100% true?
No, not necessarily.
And then we start thinking about the ads
or the advertisements, those aren't always forthcoming.
A lot of times the advertisements are
taking information in, making it look really good
for what they're advertising.
You always have to be very critical and careful.
Think about what it's saying,
and is it trying to use information
to benefit its own process?
Then you have the internet, electronic publications.
Does anybody regulate what's put onto a personal blog,
or what's put into a personal homepage?
No, there's no regulation there.
Anyone can make any claim they want.
Now if you're on a, again, a reputable site.
You're looking at a major news outlet,
or looking at one of the peer-reviewed journals
that has an online presence,
good chance those are probably a little more accurate
in the information.
But smaller companies or smaller sites
that are run by small media outlets,
maybe they're just trying to grab headlines, who knows?
Again, the key thing is be critical.
Think about what you're seeing.
Not everything you see on the internet is true.
Constantly, there are things being put out there
that are just spoofs.
They're just practical jokes seeing how many people
they can get to believe the fallacy they've made up.
So there a lot of ways to get your information out,
but as the general public, we have to think
in a critical manner.
Think, "Is this really true?
"Could this be possible?"
And think about what other information you know.
If someone's quoting saying, "This is true
"because I have a study of three people."
Well, a study on three people probably isn't as accurate
as a study on 300
or 3,000 people.
Again, the larger the sampling,
the better chance of covering more possibilities.
Now we all talked about this hypothesis already.
The hypothesis was the idea
of what you think is gonna happen.
Well, a hypothesis can become a theory.
Was a few things that must occur first.
A theory is more of a concrete idea,
one that's more readily accepted.
A hypothesis is something you're trying to accept.
So first off, a theory must be broad.
Has to be very general, and it has to be extensively tested.
And it doesn't mean extensively tested by one scientist
just over and over and over.
That means extensively tested by many different people
in many different situations,
and all of them coming back with the same results
or the same ideas.
Has to be supported over time.
One that's been pretty good as a theory is gravity.
It's pretty broad.
Gravity pulls things down towards Earth.
It's been pretty extensively tested.
Anyone drops anything on Earth,
it gets pulled down to the earth.
Supported over time.
I'm pretty sure things have been dropping to Earth
because of gravity for quite a while now.
Can explain a broad range of facts.
Sure, why if you let something go in your hand,
does it fall?
Why do leaves fall from trees?
Why does water run downhill?
I mean, it can explain a ton of things.
And having a high degree of reliability.
Is there a time where gravity
just all of a sudden disappears?
Or maybe just shifts and all of a sudden,
things float up?
No, not unless you're in some special chambers
or in a free fall in an airplane.
So the reliability is pretty good.
Gravity is there, is gonna cause things to fall to Earth.
Now, theories can be refuted.
They can be proven to be incorrect.
If all of a sudden in 100 years, for some reason,
gravity has reversed, and everything on Earth
starts to float instead of being pulled to Earth.
Kind of a crazy idea right now,
but in that case, you're probably gonna refute
the idea of gravity.
Because all of a sudden, this theory of gravity
pulling things to Earth isn't happening.
So, hopefully, that one doesn't happen
'cause there'll be some real problems,
but just the idea.
You can refute theories if all of a sudden
they become not true.
So we have to learn to be
this critical thinker I'm talking about.
We're talking about information being passed down
on the internet, in mass media.
You have to think, "Is this really true?
"Is it possible?"
So the idea of becoming a skeptic.
Now, I'm not saying think everything is false
all the time no matter what, no.
Certain times, sure, accept as a truth,
you know that's a reputable source.
But other times, if it's the first time
you've heard from this source
or first time you've heard it from this person,
just think about it for a second.
Don't just instantaneously jump on the bandwagon.
So, things to think about it.
Who is stating it is true?
Is it someone that has a really solid reputation
in that field?
Or someone that's being paid for their opinion?
If they're being paid by a company
that's trying to promote something,
odds are, they're gonna only put someone out there
as their spokesperson that will concur
with what they believe, that will agree
with what they're trying to sell.
Now, most media outlets, most of the typical ones
summarize the source data.
They don't just give it all to you.
They say, "All of this data means this."
They kind of summarize it for you.
They bring it into one nice, neat package.
Something that's easier for most people to understand.
So we start thinking about the sources for science,
our peer-reviewed journals as in "Nature" and "Science."
The journal, "Nature" and the journal, "Science"
are two of the largest, most respected journals there are.
If you ever pick up a copy of "Nature,"
or pick up a copy of "Science,"
whether digital or in print,
and start reading through it,
each article, each scientific paper in there
will have tons and tons of data backing it up.
With plenty of citations saying where it came from
and what the conditions were.
Well for most individuals,
that reading isn't the most exciting in the world.
A few of us love doing that, but it's not for everyone.
Everyone has their own interests.
So what the typical media outlets will do
is take that very technical piece
where you had to have a lot of background
in the field to understand,
summarize it into more of a general statements.
So a larger population can understand it.