Question

A student is reading about a scientific claim in a newspaper article. The article include

Answer 1

Answer:

Who will benefit from the claim?

Where did the data come from?

What is the reputation of the data source?

Was the data obtained through multiple experiments?

Explanation:

In order to validate a scientific claim, it is important to follow several steps:

• inquire who will benefit from the claim: sometimes specific claims are made in order for third parties to make profits or advertise themselves rather than provide objective research and present it to the public; besides, specific research companies might be financed by the individuals who are interested in specific outcomes of an experiment that would be favorable for them;
• find out where the data came from: data is the most important material in validating the claim, as it's gathered in an experiment and final conclusions are made of it. It's important to make sure that the data gathered is objective and not fabricated;
• verify the reputation of the data source: this is extremely relevant as well. Some data sources are simply not approved for scientific research standards (think of, say, the reason why we cannot cite Wikipedia in our papers);
• make sure that multiple experiments were carried out: significant errors are usually avoided when several experiments are performed. A single experiment leaves a big room for an error.

However, we shouldn't judge the validity of a claim based on our personal bond with it, as it's subjective. Regardless of how we feel about the claim, that doesn't influence its validity.