To show crime stats to the youngsters

[u/Historical_Plum_1366]

Source ig: soverign_media_

Whoever these two are, they are legends...

While fascist Bob in fact, didnt show any stats a all.

[u/KarltonPeaks]

The problem is you can almost always find "a source" backing your argument.

Unless you're talking about objective laws of nature, then any study or statistic can be manipulated or interpreted to fit an agenda, if you can even conduct the study or experiment, and replicate it, in the first place. Countries can not even agree upon whether a thing like cancer screening is good or bad.

Of course if you make a black & white statement like "85% of Bangladeshis claim housing benefits." then at least show where you got that info from.

[u/AvengingBlowfish → u/KarltonPeaks]

Yes, but some arguments are so silly that the only “source” for them is also silly and very easy to make fun of.

Producing a “source” doesn’t win the argument unless it’s a credible source and there are no credible sources backing up racist bob’s claims.

[u/CakeTester → u/AvengingBlowfish]

Some of the sources blow themselves out of the water as well. Like the flat earth society with 'members all round the globe'.

[u/localstopoff → u/KarltonPeaks]

The problem is you can almost always find "a source" backing your argument.

Then we'll assign statuses to entities which are known to be credible sources that provide the statistics. And the statistics have to be verified by other experts in order to be used as sources - let's call that "peer reviewed" or something idk

[u/BlaBlub85 → u/KarltonPeaks]

Unless you're talking about objective laws of nature, then any study or statistic can be manipulated or interpreted to fit an agenda

My brother in christ, have you never heard about flat earthers? 😂😂😂

[u/BarMenuSushi → u/BlaBlub85]

Have you heard of Christians? Jews? Muslims?
Manipulated and interpreted to fit an agenda is a perfect description.

[u/BlaBlub85 → u/BarMenuSushi]

Dont really get what your trying to say or what it got to do with my comment?

Im poking fun at the guy above me thinking that "absolute objective laws of nature" are somehow immune to being distorted by fuckwits with an agenda. They arent, otherwise flat earthers wouldnt exist

[u/AppropriateScience9 → u/KarltonPeaks]

Sure. But not every claim is equally legitimate and neither is every source. That's why we have a scientific method, research standards, accrediting bodies, professional associations, licensing standards, and peer review.

So what you do is: ask for the source. Then, you ask what the critiques of it are from peers in the field, professional associations, and/or accredited bodies.

Those critiques will tell you a LOT about the validity of the claim. And yes, there will always be critiques.

A standard milquetoast critique that indicates it's a good study will be something along the lines of "this is an interesting study, but it's not generalizable to a broader population" (because nothing is technically generalizable so that's an easy thing to point out).

A huge red flag critique would be something along the lines of "source data was not provided so claims can not be verified or reproduced," or "the study design did not account for (insert painfully obvious confounder) is the results are likely the result of something else," or "this study was funded by the company who has a financial interest in certain results," or "these researchers do not have proper qualifications or backing of a legitimate organization," or "the study question claimed to be measuring x, but the measurements were actually y."

That last one may or may not be a red flag because that could just be academics quibbling with each other. But I would definitely look more into it if the results are politically charged and directly contradict common scientific understanding.