Sciencemadness Discussion Board - When looking for competent scientific articles

When looking for competent scientific articles

ficolas - 15-6-2016 at 12:03

Whenever im interested in contrasting something about popular belief that seems pretty fake to me (Or finding trustable information or whatever), I just google it, but very often, the results are wikipedia, or shitty articles from blogs that give ignorant tips. This is happening quite often, as I am becoming quite sceptical (And it seems to be making me wiser, I used to belive some bullshit when I was younger).
Finding competent articles seem to be a hard task, so I wanted to ask here to see if somebody could give me some tips for looking for competent information.
And also, to complain about it (even thought its not going to change anything

) about it because its quite annoying. This may not be exactly a topic suited for the forum... sorry if that is right, just send it straight to detritus. Im getting quite pesimist about this topic for some reason.

morganbw - 15-6-2016 at 13:32

If you have a specific question, perhaps ask. There are several members here who can supply you with a scientific paper or to point you toward a thread that will give you a good overview on what you are interested in.

The info found in this forum is quite astounding. No single individual here knows all but as a collective it is pretty amazing.

If you need the secret of life, perhaps this is the wrong place, ask specific questions that pertain to chemistry.

ficolas - 15-6-2016 at 14:07

I will!

Im loving this forum, and its comunity so far, and hopefully in the future I will be able to contribute more, when I get proper studies.
But sometimes its something that isnt really important, for example the other day, somebody told me that certain food had numerous beneficts to health, so I went to google it, and I found mostly blogs saying that it was true, and after some time I finally found a proper and kinda recent article saying that it could have some, but not completelly demostrated. Im wont ask something like that, its not that important, and trying to find infoemation by myself before asking is always good, no need to disturb other people (Specially when having spent some time arround certain comunities in the internet where people dont treat others that good when they ask questions, however sciencemadness seems to be completelly different

)

gregxy - 16-6-2016 at 10:32

Almost any scientific topic has a peer reviewed journal devoted to it. Start with those. For medical stuff try pubmed, the government data base of articles.

For fringe topic (aliens in Roswell) good luck. You can't believe photos or video "evidence" any more.

Richard3050 - 17-6-2016 at 09:20

Quote: Originally posted by gregxy

Almost any scientific topic has a peer reviewed journal devoted to it. Start with those. For medical stuff try pubmed, the government data base of articles.

For fringe topic (aliens in Roswell) good luck. You can't believe photos or video "evidence" any more.

While I do agree that things that have been peer reviewed are often more accurate, this not always the case. Check out the article by FiveThirtyEight "Science Isn’t Broken" and a video by Sixty Symbols "Peer Review and Golden Chopsticks".

Aria - 3-4-2018 at 02:25

Thanks for starting this topic. I`m also interested in it

ficolas

Sulaiman - 3-4-2018 at 05:27

Wikipedia is one of my primary resources.
The articles are easy to read, informative and mostly accurate as they are peer reviewed by multiple people.

Most importantly, at the bottom of the page, are links to references.

JJay - 3-4-2018 at 10:43

It really depends on what you are researching... some topics have boundless documentation of high accuracy and quality with easily verified and repeatable results. Others do not.

Wikipedia is a start, but it is far from perfect for sorting the wheat from the chaff. In recent memory, I read a link from there that recommended using calcium chloride to dry acetic acid (CaCl2 dissolves in AcOH, releasing free HCl).

The ACS tends put reputable articles in its journals and indexes reputable articles. I'm not exactly sure what they do to verify article quality, but they are clearly doing something right.

Sulaiman - 3-4-2018 at 12:18

As I am fairly new to chemistry (school + last 4 years) I compare my level of chemistry knowledge equivalent to when for my electronics hobby I used to read Everyday Electronics, then Practical Electronics, followed by Wireless World then Uni.

Electronics hobbyists have massive advantages over chemistry hobbyists,
most significantly component manufacturers need us to use their products,
and because there are so few competitors, each tries to educate us as best they can.
Free samples everywhere.

Chemistry, being a much more established discipline seems to me to be built upon a culture of secrecy - since the days of alchemy.
And I never worried about legality or shipping for electronics..

Melgar - 23-4-2018 at 08:26

Quote: Originally posted by JJay

In recent memory, I read a link from there that recommended using calcium chloride to dry acetic acid (CaCl2 dissolves in AcOH, releasing free HCl).

That's not entirely wrong, since HCl will "salt out" the water layer at high concentrations. Seems like phosphoric acid (and probably sulfuric acid too) would be a better choice. You'd have to distill though, I guess.

One red flag for me has been using scientific terminology to describe inconclusive or sloppy experiments. Or trying to put a positive spin on a reaction that produces considerable amounts of more than one product, especially if it's clear that only one of those products is desired.

sodium_stearate - 23-4-2018 at 10:23

Quote: Originally posted by Sulaiman

Electronics hobbyists have massive advantages over chemistry hobbyists...

Free samples everywhere.

Chemistry, being a much more established discipline seems to me to be built upon a culture of secrecy - since the days of alchemy.
And I never worried about legality or shipping for electronics..

True overall. However, let us not forget that many chemical
companies do have rather aggressive samples programs.
It was due to this fact, that I was able to make my
first 200 cylinders using stearic acid samples obtained
from various manufacturers. In addition to the benefit
of having the material to use without cost, the greatest
advantage turned out to be one of being able to
test them all so that the best kind could be found.