As I write this blog post, Francis Haugen testifies on Capitol Hill and sheds light on some of Facebook's shady practices. TL;DR- Facebook realizes that its practices are support terrorism.  This led to a public relations blitz from Facebook, including Monika Bickert, who appeared on CNN . Of particular relevance is repeated reference made to an Instagram survey of 40 teens ( here is the documentation I was able to find ). I saw this tweet from Asha Rangappa Reaction about one of those interviews: https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1445487820580081674 LOL I had to listen to this twice to make sure I didn’t mishear: This @Facebook exec repeatedly refers to a “survey” of FORTY teen Insta users— as in 4-0 — to support her assertion that the “majority” of teens have a great experience on the platform. For real. Listen to it https://t.co/Ye7ocWcnzG — Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) October 5, 2021 This example packs a lot of punch. It is a good one for the youths because it is ...

This example from Retraction Watch illustrates how NOT to do research. It is a study that was accepted and retracted from Frontiers in Public Health. It purported to find a link between childhood vaccination and a variety of childhood illnesses. This would be a good case study for Research Methods. In particular, this example illustrates: 1) Retraction of scientific studies 2) The problems with self-report surveys 3) Sampling and trying to generalized from biased samples 4) What constitutes a small sample size depending on the research you are conducting 5) Conflict of interest This study, since retracted, studied unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, and fully vaccinated children. And the study found " Vaccinated children were significantly less likely than the unvaccinated to have been diagnosed with chickenpox and pertussis, but significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with pneumonia, otitis media, allergies and NDDs (defined as Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attenti...

Bahahaha. A very funny example of conflict of interest, as this satirical study was sponsored by Red Robin.  Click through to the original content to rea d how the study replaced "I Voted" stickers with " thick Red Robin Gourmet Cheeseburger complete with pickle relish, tomatoes, onions, lettuce, mayonnaise, and their choice of cheese". http://creative.theonion.com/ads/onion-ring/article/study-giving-away-ldquoi-votedrdquo-burger-instead-of-sticker-would-increase-voter-turnout-by-80

This NPR story is a summary of the decisively titled " The Mass Production of Redundant, Misleading, and Conflicted Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses " authored by Dr. John Ioannidis. The NPR story provides a very brief explanation of meta-analysis and systematic reviews. It explains that they were originally used as a way to make sense of many conflicting research findings coming from a variety of different researchers. But these very influential publications are now being sponsored and possibly influenced by Big Pharma. This example explains conflicts of interest and how they can influence research outcomes. In addition to financial relationships, the author also cites ideological allegiances as a source of bias in meta-analysis. In addition to Dr. Ioannidis, Dr. Peter Kramer was interviewed. He is a psychiatrist who defends the efficacy of antidepressants. He suggests that researchers who believe that placebos are just as effective as anti-depressants tend to analy...

I love research that is counterintuitive. It is interesting to me and makes a strong, memorable example for the classroom. That's why I'm recommending Carroll's piece  from the NYT. It questions the conventional wisdom that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. As Carroll details, there is a long standing and strong belief in nutrition research claiming that breakfast reduces obesity and leads to numerous healthy outcomes. But most nutrition research is correlational, not causal. AND there seems to be an echo-chamber effect, such that folks are miss-citing previous nutrition research to bring it in line with the breakfast research. Reasons to use this article as a discussion piece in your statistics or research methods course: -Highlights the difference between correlation and causation -Provides an easy to understand example of publication bias ("no breakfast = obesity" is considered a fact, studies that found the opposite were less likely to...