A new study found…

We often hear in the media and in the academic press about promising new studies that can link some common everyday thing such as coffee, garlic or sex with a disease such as cancer or arthritis (either as causing it or protecting from it).

Reasons for jumping to conclusions vary but include (but not limited to):

• Over generalization from animals to people
• Poorly designed samples with inherent biases
• Using samples that are too small for the effect being shown
• Deliberate misinterpretation of results to fit a pre-conceived narrative

Often the scientists behind the study are not to blame, they may produce the best pre-clinical research possible. Drawing far reaching conclusions from early research is the problem.

A new Twitter account that is really worth checking out explains one of the reasons for this. Remember that over 100,000,000 years ago, the last most-common ancestor of mice and humans had died and we have been evolving in different directions ever since.

Imagine a world where transparency and explicit research methods make this sort of sensationalism impossible!