In W. P. Hanage’s article he uses human microbiome research as an example to discusses five questions we need to consider when reading scientific literature before we make any conclusions. The first question, \u201ccan experiments detect differences that matter?\u201d is important because so many inaccurate conclusions are shown to the public before experimental findings are confirmed. Hanage describes this problem discussing how markets are manipulating published microbiome research from a single to a few studies to try to get products out to help control everything from mental health to diabetes. The reality is the gut biome is so complex that experiments have done little more than scratch the surface on the microbial diversity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Considering what research has actually shown leads us into the second question,\u201cdoes the study show causation or correlation?\u201d. It is difficult to know if the microbial composition can cause differences in human functioning or if the two (human health and microbiome diversity) fluctuate together because as the environment changes both will change but separately. Hanage\u2019s makes a good point though, that correlation usually indicates a sort of casual relationship, and that is why the third question must be asked, \u201cwhat is the mechanism?\u201d. In order to determine how much one is related to another we need to lay out an exact mechanism that the interaction occurs through.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fourth question, \u201chow much do experiments reflect reality?\u201d is especially important in microbiology because so much of the work is done in a lab, in a controlled environment where the effects of the experiment are easily visible. For example, according to Hanage, gut microbiome changes have observable effects in diebetic lab mice, but in order to do these experiments the lab mice are germ-free and designed for lab work, not natural. Natures ever changing environment and hard to control factor, especially when examining the human microbiome that fluxuates per day per person, leads us to our fifth, and final question; \u201ccould anything else explain the results?\u201d. This is extremely important to consider because we never want to draw permanent conclusions from data after an experiment that has all sorts of varying factors. I will discuss this more below, as I consider which questions to consider during scientific controversy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would argue that \u201cCan experiments detect differences that matter?\u201d and \u201cCould anything else explain the results?\u201d, are the two questions that are helpful when discussing controversy. The former is important because it allows scientists to state whether there is even any point in examining an individual experiment, or if you can\u2019t make a decision until multiple experiments have been done and recorded and duplicated. The latter is important because there are always many factors in science, no matter how much we try to control, that affect the result. This is particularly true when doing microbiology research, when even the tiniest contaminate can skew the results. Therefore when discussing controversial topics, we again need to identify if our results are valid and if there are other options, so no inaccurate conclusions lead to misinformed actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hanage WP. <\/strong>2014. Microbiome science needs a healthy dose of scepticism. Nature 512:<\/strong>248. DOI: 10.1038\/512247a.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In W. P. Hanage’s article he uses human microbiome research as an example to discusses five questions we need to consider when reading scientific literature before we make any conclusions. The first question, \u201ccan experiments detect differences that matter?\u201d is important because so many inaccurate conclusions are shown to the public before experimental findings are … Continue reading Five Important Questions To Ensure Scrutiny of Researches Findings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11054,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11054"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/nbmolecmicro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}