Wikipedia talk:Why MEDRS?

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HealthNewsReview

This article could do with a link to the HealthNewsReview website, which is terrific at unpicking overblown news stories with a health angle. They do a wonderful job. JFW | T@lk 09:27, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Review required for this edit.

Could you guys help review this edit to see if it complies with the standard of WP:MEDANIMAL and Wikipedia:Why_MEDRS?? This is beyond my knowledge. Thanks. --Envisaging tier (talk) 09:52, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Envisaging tier - that should have been an easy one to reject. It's a 1985 report (WP:MEDDATE) on rats (WP:MEDANIMAL, WP:PRIMARY) for a section implying a 'health effect' on longevity of humans. When seeing such a statement and weak source, better to reject outright and direct the editor to the talk page to try defending it. --Zefr (talk) 15:52, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the knowledge you've imparted! --Envisaging tier (talk) 16:48, 25 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it depends on the sort of statement needing support.

It seems to me that you ought to distinguish a statement like "Vitamin Z cures the common cold" from a statement like "Scientists are investigating/hypothesising that Vitamin Z cures the common cold". Your arguments explain why primary literature may be unsuitable to reference the first sort of statement. But I don't see why citing primary research papers is not adequate to support the second. Reporting current directions of research or controversies seems to me entirely within Wikipedia's remit, but waiting for a review may mean that these topics don't get covered. Citing a couple of prominent papers from the primary literature that argue against each other seems entirely adequate evidence that a controversy exists. Jmchutchinson (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We certainly should. This is subject to WP:RSCONTEXT and should be honored. The distinction should be clear. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 00:07, 6 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fallacy names

The essay describes "autism after vaccine, therefore vaccine caused autism" as a correlation-vs-causation fallacy. I think it is better described as a post hoc fallacy. Jruderman (talk) 07:25, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]