[Kaotique]

I think a lot of these kinds of studies are not really about objectively studying a phenomenon but trying to prove a predetermined point. The study is designed and adjusted until it proves what it should prove. Then it's wrapped in a nice news headline which goes away with all the details and subtleties and used for political or economic gain. Reproducing the results is not interesting and not funded. Other studies are then using these results as sources to stack the house of cards even higher. I think this does a lot of harm to science as a whole because a lot of people disregard all scientific results as a result.

[nkoren]

Yeah, sadly, I think it's worth having "ulterior motives" on the list.

One of the first time I got interested in reading medical studies was when I saw a bunch of headlines announcing that a randomized controlled trial had proved that echinacea was ineffective for treating respiratory problems. This surprised me, because I'd always been a dogmatic drinker of echinacea tea whenever I had a cold, and had thought that it helped. But then again, I come from a culture of damn dirty hippies, so I was open to being wrong about it. Rather than rely on the headlines, I decided to dig up the study itself.

Here's what the study actually found: that rubbing an echinacea-infused ointment on your wrists has no effect on respiratory health.

Er... yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Literally nobody uses echinacea that way. You've just falsified a total straw-man of a hypothesis, and based on the number of headlines generated off the back of this, I think it's reasonable to presume there was some kind of funded apparatus for disseminating that bogus result.

Ever since then, I've learned not to trust the headlines when it comes to trials, reserving judgment until I've looked at the methodology. When I do, a lot come up short.

[kridsdale1]

I’ve gotten in the habit of sending study pdf files to Claude, having it write its own Abstract and headline from the rest of the content, then comparing those to the “organic” Abstract and headline.

[Xcelerate]

This is exactly what’s going on in many situations. For any proposed study, you can ask the question “Is there a possible outcome of this study that would have a strong emotional effect on someone?” If the answer is “yes”, then I’d say it’s more likely than not that the study’s results are already compromised in some subtle way.

[HPsquared]

Like a lot of other noble pursuits, scientific enquiry can be corrupted by money.