Reader Beware: Separating Science from Science Marketing

The supply of information we have access to now is vast and growing—the result of which is an increasingly competitive market for our attention.

It’s economics. High supply and limited demand make for a competitive market. While our supply of information is vast, our demand for it can’t keep up. The reality of time limits how much information we can consume. Consequently, the competition for our scarce attentional resources is intense. And unfortunately, the competitive market for our attention often rewards engagement over accuracy.

In this competitive environment, the pursuit of truth can often take a backseat to the quest for clicks, page views, likes, shares, and follows. Selling information ends up being a lot like selling any other product. Provocative headlines. Sensational claims. Cherry-picked facts. These are all marketing tactics used with the goal of capturing your interest and attention and convincing you to buy into a product or idea.

Ideally, science would resist these questionable marketing tactics, steadfastly pursuing the truth. However, science too has an ever-increasing supply of information, with more and more scientific research papers and popular press articles about science being published every day. The result of which is that universities, researchers, and science journalists all end up competing for our limited attention too. In the pursuit of fame or fortune, science communication can turn into science marketing.

“The unvarnished truth is not always enough to capture our attention.”

West and Bergstrom, 2021

Science communication becomes science marketing.

The same marketing techniques used for products end up being used for scientific information. Hyperbolic titles, overstated claims, selective reporting, and the mischaracterization of past and current research are all found in scientific publishing (Corneille et al., 2023; Kimmel et al., 2023; Martin, 1992; West and Bergstrom, 2021). Corneille et al. (2023) generously call these tactics “persuasive communication devices” but all too often their use crosses the line where the pursuit of visibility and impact surpasses any commitment to truthful and responsible communication.  

It takes a lot of time to root out these problems. Further, there’s usually little incentive for anyone to spend their precious time fact checking everyone else’s work. There’s a wealth of proposed solutions to the problem of inaccurate scientific publishing, both upstream and downstream of the publishing process (e.g., Hosseini et al., 2020; error.reviews, 2024; Nosek et al., 2012; Young et al., 2008). Whether these solutions will work or be adopted, only time will tell. In the meantime, what can we do as individual readers?

Reader Beware: Old Wisdom for New Times

Marketing is nothing new. Deceptive marketing techniques have long been used to sell us shoddy products or bad information. In response, we have a long tradition of wise sayings to help us counter those techniques, sayings that are just as applicable to reading scientific information as they are to buying goods.

“Buyer beware.” Just as buyers are advised to critically evaluate a product and its claims before they purchase it, so readers should scrutinize a scientific paper before they accept its conclusions. Impulse purchases based on emotions are often regretted. So too, a reader who hastily accepts information because it excites or confirms prior beliefs pays the consequences.  It pays to be a careful reader.

“Read the fine print.” Buyers are encouraged to read the fine print on a product, where ingredients, disclaimers, side effects, and products limitations often hide. With scientific papers, readers should make sure not to skip the methods, discussion, and acknowledgement sections, which can reveal limitations, uncertainties, and potential conflicts of interest. Also, don’t assume that every paper has correctly cited previous research. Miscitation—where a paper inaccurately portrays the contents of a cited paper—is a common and compounding problem (Smith and Banks, 2017). While labor intensive, it can be worthwhile to double-check an author’s references for accurate representation of those references and even scan the literature for important references that may have been omitted. Depending on the situation, it may even be worth a deep dive into the supplementary materials.

“All that glitters is not gold.” Buyers should know that attractive packaging can be misleading, just as readers should know that a flashy headline or press release may not reflect the actual substance of the research. For example, writers may (in haste or excitement or carelessness) mistake correlation for causation. Careful readers, however, will know that correlation is not sufficient evidence for causation and know for the need to look past the “packaging” of a paper and into the substance of it. 

“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Buyers should be skeptical of sensational product claims. Similarly, readers should be skeptical of scientific findings that promise trade-off free solutions or that find extraordinary results not confirmed anywhere else. One paper does not make such observations fact; wait to see if they can be reproduced by other researchers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

“Consider the source.” As buyers, we know to give different weights to different sources of information. We consider both the reputation of the source and the incentives the source has to give us true versus false information. It should be the same when reading scientific papers—consider the reputation of the authors and the journal, and any funding sources that might influence the findings.

“…scholars should not have a priori interests in the outcome of their studies.”

Büntgen, 2024

With regard to authors, be wary whenever an author has a vested interest in a particular research outcome. This can be when an author stands to gain financially from a particular outcome, as when a scientist might expect further financial support from an industry if they produce results favorable to that industry (Martin, 1992), or when an author has staked their reputation with a public, vocal, and/or activist commitment to a certain belief that could be overturned by a certain scientific outcome (Büntgen, 2024). None of us is immune to bias, but there are certain situations more troubling than others.

With regard to journals, be wary of “predatory journals” which may look like regular academic journals but whose primary goal of making money is done at the expense of any sort of editorial oversight or procedural transparency (Grudniewicz et al., 2019). 

A measured skepticism is required.

Keeping these words of wisdom in mind will help you bring a thoughtful and critical approach to reading scientific literature. My goal here is not that you decide to distrust science, but that you view its findings with a healthy and appropriate skepticism. We can view peer reviewed research in respected journals with less skepticism than information presented in a YouTube video or podcast, but this does not mean every peer reviewed paper is robust science reported accurately. We should aspire to a measured skepticism, avoiding both careless acceptance and stubborn denial.

Misinformation is easier to produce, more popular, and more profitable than the truth. While the sayings above are time-tested and useful, I don’t believe they are adequate for the challenge we all face. Neither scientists nor non-scientists have the time to take due diligence with the tremendous and growing number of published papers out there, let alone with the additional popular press articles, videos, and podcasts. And even successful efforts to refute misleading science are never seen by most of those previously misled. We need more diligence from readers, yes, but also from writers, journals, and institutions if we are to tackle the growing problem of misinformation. In the short-term, it is up to each of us to navigate today’s science and media landscape. In the long-term, I have to believe, as Shakespeare wrote, the “truth will out.”

Edited by Angela Florence.

References

Büntgen, U. 2024. The importance of distinguishing climate science from climate activism. npj Clim. Action 3(1): 1–2. doi: 10.1038/s44168-024-00126-0.

Corneille, O., J. Havemann, E.L. Henderson, H. IJzerman, I. Hussey, et al. 2023. Beware ‘persuasive communication devices’ when writing and reading scientific articles. eLife 12: e88654. doi: 10.7554/eLife.88654.

Error: Estimating the reliability and robustness of research. 2024. ERROR: Estimating the Reliability & Robustness of Research. https://error.reviews (accessed 21 February 2024).

Grudniewicz, A., D. Moher, K.D. Cobey, G.L. Bryson, S. Cukier, et al. 2019. Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature 576(7786): 210–212. doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03759-y.

Hosseini, M., M.P. Eve, B. Gordijn, and C. Neylon. 2020. MyCites: a proposal to mark and report inaccurate citations in scholarly publications. Research Integrity and Peer Review 5(1): 13. doi: 10.1186/s41073-020-00099-8.

Kimmel, K., M.L. Avolio, and P.J. Ferraro. 2023. Empirical evidence of widespread exaggeration bias and selective reporting in ecology. Nature ecology & evolution 7(9): 1525–1536.

Martin, B. 1992. SCIENTIFIC FRAUD AND THE POWER STRUCTURE OF SCIENCE. Prometheus 10(1). doi: 10.1080/08109029208629515.

Nosek, B.A., J.R. Spies, and M. Motyl. 2012. Scientific Utopia: II. Restructuring Incentives and Practices to Promote Truth Over Publishability. Perspect Psychol Sci 7(6): 615–631. doi: 10.1177/1745691612459058.

Smith, H.M., and P.B. Banks. 2017. How dangerous conservation ideas can develop through citation errors. Australian Zoologist 38(3): 408–413.

West, J.D., and C.T. Bergstrom. 2021. Misinformation in and about science. PNAS 118(15). doi: 10.1073/pnas.1912444117.

Young, N.S., J.P.A. Ioannidis, and O. Al-Ubaydli. 2008. Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science. PLoS Med 5(10): e201. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201.