Science in Media
Why We Believe in Fake Science: Evaluating Scientific Claims

Many of the 'scientific' claims we read on the internet are misinformation in disguise. Can you tell the difference? Here's a quick guide on how to separate scientific fact from fiction.

By Anindita Sen and Biswajyoti Bandyopadhyay

Generations born after the advent of the internet are growing up in a world of accelerated opinions. Unlike the past, a large amount of the information we consume is mediated through influencers and thought leaders.

Often these opinions are presented on the basis of a scientific claim. For readers, this becomes a cue to accept it without question and share it onwards.

Let us take a critical look and ask ourselves why we are drawn to scientific claims, and what are some of the ways we can evaluate them critically.

The pseudo-science outbreak
A good starting point would be to analyse claims made by the fitness, health and wellness ecosystem, which floods social media with declarations of performance enhancing supplements, superfoods, and the disease mitigating properties of botanicals - all written using scientific vocabulary and tone.

Often, these claims are bracketed by life affirming stories about personal struggles reversed through strategies based on ‘science’. From stories of how people lost weight which feed into our latent body dysmorphia, to stories of extraordinary cures that feed our post pandemic anxiety. Whether it’s advocating a high protein diet, creatine supplementation, or the cancer healing properties of a certain kind of tea, these claims amplified by the media and social networks sound miraculous until we scrutinise them objectively.

That is when we realise that most of them are not backed by scientific rigour. They have proven effective only among a very small sample size, cannot be replicated, and should come with caveats about overuse since many of them carry hidden dangers.

However even after knowing that misinformation represented as science might be dubious, we are still drawn to these claims. Why? The answer might come from a deeper need that we have to re-enchant our world.

Readers of today are living in a poly-crisis global environment. It is changing and evolving so fast that we feel a loss of control and agency. Previous certainties and benchmarks may now feel meaningless. One of the reasons why we are drawn to pseudo-scientific claims in the media may be because they feed our need for hope where we feel powerless.

One such story that caught the world’s imagination in 2009 was of Paolo Zamboni, an Italian researcher who claimed to have cured his wife’s multiple sclerosis by unblocking the veins in her neck. This led to media speculation that MS was actually a disease of the vascular system and challenged the mainstream belief that it was a disease of the immune system. This story was particularly appealing because it also had a layer of romance and medical drama based on a man’s quest to save his wife and gave hope to many others similarly suffering around the world.

While many hoped for a cure in the moment, once reality reasserted itself it became quite obvious that what readers were caught up in was a romantic idea rather than a real scientific breakthrough. Zamboni’s sample size was too small, his experiment design was defective, and his results could not be replicated. His claim did not meet the basic characteristics of scientific fact.

What drives our beliefs
As readers progress into a world where algorithms make them more and more predictable, it is not uncommon to feel reduced to statistics. Urban infrastructure is draining the everyday of enchantment, leaving very little scope for grand emotions. Perhaps that is why we feel drawn to scientific claims, because they represent a modern way for miracles to exist.

What gives pause to the runaway train of miraculous science is when we read up on the effectiveness of these claims. For example, a 2003 study published in the American Journal of Medicine studied 101 articles that offered new therapeutic solutions in six major science journals. Twenty years later, only five of these have gone on to become licensed for clinical use and only one has delivered on its promises by having a significant impact on health.

While hope can be serious business, we still need to be cognizant of best practices when we encounter scientific declarations in the media. Especially if we want to escape echo chambers, and not get sucked into perpetuating what may be a great story but isn’t the best science.

The reality check
Imagine there was a claim that scientists from Nasa have researched and found that the position of the constellation Revathi may impact real life situations. 99% of the time such a claim would not be adequately backed. The first step is to verify the claim through plain common sense. Beyond that, an internet search of the scientific basis of the claim would solve the conundrum. If a claim still stands after these two steps of verification, one could download the scientific article to understand it further. Readers should be wary of anything that uses scientific discourse to validate itself and immediately put it under scrutiny.

The pandemic was a time when we were inundated with scientific claims and fake news. One way to benchmark is by taking cognizance of what the scientific peer communities think of them. An article where a claim is made should contain comments from experts who are not associated with that study. Reputed peer evaluation is a marker of credibility.

As strategies to evaluate scientific claims go, the most effective way seems to be to give ourselves a reality check when we feel something seems too good to be true. To interrogate the facts, however moved we are by the story or opinion. We must read around claims and balance our feelings with whether or not the scientific community truly accepts them.

Real science is committed to the idea of growing by acknowledging its own limitations. That is the basis of scientific temperament. So while we fact check and evaluate we must also search for better science.