Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Never trust a scientific study released by the AP

I was working on a long rant about how whenever you find a "health" article on the Internet that was released by the Associated Press about 95% of the time the lab did that because they have very faulty or tenuous data and cannot get into a reputable journal so they're looking for money by scaring the crap out of the public and/or just saying what everyone wants to hear. So take everything you read with a big old grain of salt.

Then I saw this cartoon from PhD comics and realized they summed it up so much better. This is what happens when people who probably failed Bio 101 are the publics only link to research in extremely complicated Biochemistry pathways.
Click on it if you can't read all the text to open it up larger in a new window.
I can't even begin to count the number of people who after finding out I work in research ask me the dumbest questions about something they heard from some guy, or read on the Internets. Luckily it hasn't lead to too many tin foil hats, but it's only a matter of time.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha that comic is awesome. I especially like the "What will it mean for Obama?!?!?" part because it's true. I was watching CNN while waiting for a doctor's appt and there was a 4 person panel debating on whether or not Obama was going to be infected by the swine flu. Oh dear.

Linda said...

Exactly. I met a woman who warned me of the dangers of bleach. She was berating me about having bleach, stating I was giving myself and everyone I loved cancer. I thought it sounded fishy. I mean hospitals use bleach, right? I checked, yeah bleach can give you cancer depending on how much you drink and how long you are exposed to it. Take everything with a grain of salt. And do your homework!

valerie said...

THANK YOU! Seriously. Now if only more people would read this and say, "Oh, wait. This kinda applies to me. Maybe I SHOULDN'T believe everything on the TV and internetz." *cough*

:) :)

Chesney said...

Funny!!

melissa said...

Wait a minute! Everything on the internet might not be true? Ha, Ha. Love PhD comics.

jennifer said...

great comic!

Lindsey said...

This is great!

Michelle Simpson Photos said...

Year of Hell was a good two parter too. It was a bit depressing though!

Michelle Simpson Photos said...

And that is a great comic! Thanks for sharing!