7 Reasons Everything You Know Is Probably Wrong

5. Scientific Studies Are Very Easy To Manipulate

So if we're attempting to boil the world down into solid, quantifiable facts, then scientific studies are surely a good place to start, right?

As it turns out, perhaps not.

The whole system surrounding scientific publishing has been going through something of a crisis lately, as it has become apparent that there are a few loopholes that allow low quality research to slip through the net. The actual process is complicated but, in a nutshell, it's down to a technique known as p-hacking (explained pretty comprehensively in the video above).

It is essentially a way of approaching your data from different angles in order to make it fit with your hypothesis, either by omitting certain variables, tweaking your parameters, increasing or decreasing your sample size until your reach statistical significance. This doesn't even have to be intentional, as scientists are obviously anxious for a positive result when they conduct studies. There's a fine line to tread between "proving your hypothesis" and "moving the goalposts".

This is how you end up with so many scientific studies hitting the news with some seriously spurious headlines, such as "A Glass Of Red Wine Is The Equivalent To An Hour At The Gym, Says New Study" because, with p-hacking, you can link pretty much anything with anything else and the weirder it is, the more news outlets just love it, but more on that later.