Scientific Method

I just want to share with you how I am going to look at an issue. I am going to look at research and see if it follows the scientific method. When I took statistics and research proposal classes in college the one thing I learned was that you could slant questions, play with numbers, or do a host of other things to make research say whatever you want. I will be looking to see if the proper scientific methods was followed. Proper research is done  in one of two ways. The first is you design an experiment. You have a control group and then you have other  groups where you change one variable. The goal  is for all the people in the groups to be similar in all other respects . The only difference will be the one or two things that you are looking at. When looking at this type of research I will be looking to see if there were other variables that were not included that could account for the result.  The second type is where they take a group of people and ask them questions.  They try to find similar people and ask them all the same questions and see what is the same and what is different. For example, they might take a group who has breast cancer and ask many questions to see if there is a common link.  This type of research needs to be carefully looked at to see how similar the people are or how well differences were factored in. I will also have to look at the reliability of the clients answering the questions.  The other issue with the scientific method is the ability to be repeated. It isn't enough to have one study say something. Other studies must be conducted and the same results occur.  This is the investigative approach I will take. If no research or little has been done then I will simply report that. One last thing that I will also look at is who is doing the study and see if they will benefit from the research . For example, if the tobacco company is doing a study on second hand smoke and says there is not a problem then I would be suspicious. I would have to look to see if anyone else that was independent reproduced the same results. I hope that this was not to boring but I wanted you to know how I was going to base my investigations.