Will Grant and Rod Lamberts (The Conversation, 3.10.14) discuss some common mistakes people make when trying to interpret new research:
1 ‘Wait! That’s just one study’;
2. ‘Significant doesn’t mean important’;
3. ‘And effect size doesn’t mean useful’;
4. ‘Are you judging the extremes by the majority?’;
5. ‘Did you maybe even want to find that effect?’;
6. ‘Were you tricked by sciencey snake oil?’;
7. ‘Qualities aren’t quantities and quantities aren’t qualities’;
8. ‘Models by definition are not perfect representations of reality’;
9. ‘Context matters’;
10. ‘And just because it’s peer reviewed that doesn’t make it right’.