Critical Thinking Web Exchange

In an article on the New APPS blog, philosopher Dennis Des Chene reminds everyone of the risks of relying on second-hand media sources, especially when they dramatically oversimplify scientific results.  Bad science reporting is a problem we've noted here on more than one occasion.  Des Chene is right to say, "there is no substitute for reading the original studies."  (And, we should add, still better than going back to the original study is repeating the experiment—for any study is ultimately based in someone's experience!)