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intengineering t1_isnvy9g wrote

Reply to comment by AllanfromWales1 in AskScience AMA Series: I'm Hashem Al-Ghaili, a science communicator with around 20 billion video views. AMA about bringing complex ideas to a wide audience! by AskScienceModerator

These are big issues that aren't often addressed. As science communicators, we want to make sure that the target audience receives information from authentic sources where reproducibility is achievable, and citation farms are avoided. There are three main ways to deal with this:

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  1. We ensure the paper is coming from a journal with a high impact factor. Such journals have a rigorous peer review process, which include repeating some experiments and double-checking the results. Sometimes it takes years for a publication to be online in these journals because the researchers are asked to repeat certain experiments.
  2. We look into the people involved in the research. Their affiliation, region, research topic, previous work, etc. A simple background check can reveal if this person is involved in self-citation or citation farm practices. I knew a researcher who used to put his wife's name in every paper he published, and she was doing the same for him. Both of them were research group leaders of different groups at different institutions. They were citing each other and their friends, and getting cited by their peers as well. Their publications were in the thousands! It's perfectly legal, but it's a terrible practice that compromises the scientific method.
  3. A quick check in the conflict of interest. Who is funding the research? Why are they funding the research? Why did they choose these people? Are they only citing their own previous research? These series of questions can help us make the distinction between what's reliable and what's not.
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AllanfromWales1 t1_iso02v9 wrote

While I absolutely applaud your effiorts to make sure the science you report is of good quality, I wonder if there is a need to educate the public about the darker side of science, that these sorts of things do go on and not everything can be taken at face value. My impression is that there is a significant cohort out there who think that if a scientist says something that makes it true. I suspecct inculcating a more critical approach in the general public would be beneficial in the long term.

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intengineering t1_isougsn wrote

Thank you! Occasionally, I cover the darker side of science, like the impact of the atomic bombs, the invention of materials that end up being polluting the environment, the medical experiments that backfire, etc. But I think it's important to discuss these with caution because some people might take them out of context, and they may blame every mistake on science itself rather than the way some people use it. The core of science communication is not to teach people facts, but rather to help them understand and use the process itself. By process, I mean formulating questions and seeking answers to said questions while maintaining a critical mind.

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