An important part of being a scientist or a scientifically-informed citizen is being able to interpret scientific information that is represented in the public sphere.
By choosing to study this course, you have expressed an interest in learning about how contemporary science is conducted, and this course aims to help you build the skills and confidence to critically evaluate scientific research. However, it is also useful to have an idea of how to judge the value of science as it is reported to members of the public. The next activity presents some approaches that can be applied to this task.
Allow about 1 hour 15 minutes
Begin by listening to the following audio clip, taken from a 2013 episode of BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science. Kevin McConway, Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics at The Open University, discusses how he interprets science as it is reported on radio news bulletins. You do not need to make any notes on this interview, unless you particularly want to.
It's not explored in this short clip, but Kevin has developed a 12-point checklist for evaluating science news on the radio. You will have a chance to read this checklist shortly.
With his co-author, Professor David Spiegelhalter, Kevin expands on the points he makes in the audio feature in a written article ‘Score and ignore: A radio listener’s guide to ignoring health stories’ (McConway and Spiegelhalter, 2012). Take a look at this article – you can use the box below to make your own notes about the content, if you wish, and it would be logical to focus on how he critically assesses the reports on science.
Now you will use McConway and Spiegelhalter’s checklist to evaluate two online news articles that report contemporary scientific research:
First, read each story, and score it against the 12 points from the McConway and Spiegelhalter (2012) article.
Now answer the following questions based on your analysis:
When you’ve finished your evaluation, read the discussion provided below.
Here are some thoughts on how each article can be assessed through McConway and Spiegelhalter’s checklist. (Don’t worry if your answers differ from these to some degree – evaluation of this sort is a subjective exercise.)
Total score: 7/12
Total score: 5/12, but note that the information is less clear in this second article and can’t be easily verified, as the article refers to a presentation rather than a peer-reviewed paper.
Now that you’ve practiced some techniques for critically appraising information that is presented to you, the next few sections of the course will explore a scientific area in some closer detail. The topic is plastics in society. You don’t need to worry if this topic is new to you, and you don’t follow all of the science that will be explored. This will be an exercise in gauging your current knowledge of a subject, learning some new information, and examining how the subject relates to and impacts your own life, before using the skills you’ve just developed to evaluate some sources of information about plastics.
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