My boss tells me often — Trust nothing! Verify everything! I’m learning that I agree with that sentiment.
It’s easy to make and receive claims about any aspect of the world. Turn on YouTube and you’ll find a billion influencers and news sources making claims about the world. I laugh at the irony — I am making claims about the world and you are here reading me. How much of these inputs do you accept at face value?
More and more, I am accepting little to nothing as true. Bold claims often lack important nuance. Light inaccurate claims stack up quickly and before you know it, you wonder what’s real and what’s not.
My strategy for dealing with incoming claims is simple.
If I think the claim is interesting, I say — “that’s interesting, tell me more.”
If it’s interesting enough for me to want to learn more, I’ll research the best quality evidence available (meta analysis, clinical trial, etc) to learn as much as I can. Then, I’ll re-evaluate the claim.
If it’s not interesting enough for me to learn more, I’ll file the claim as “speculative at best, come back and think about on a rainy day.”
When I look back at my research, I have researched a few claims and most claims I file under “speculative at best.” And I don’t make decisions on “speculative” data. I recommend that you, too, do not make decisions on speculative data — though, you should trust me and you evaluate the claim yourself.