According to media reports, one study concludes that vitamin E supplements reduce lung cancer, another concludes just the opposite. But before you repudiate USA Today , Newsweek , and CNN, and all the others, here is some interpretational advice that will make it easier for you to separate the wheat from the chaff. Television and newspaper reports love to cite single, isolated studies without describing how well they fit with previous research. But single studies do not a scientific generalization make. Reliable research emphasizes converging evidence - a confluence of results from many studies using different subjects and methods, performed by independent scientists.
Any finding has tentative factual status until it is confirmed repeatedly.
No definite conclusion can be drawn from a single study, no matter how well it is executed. Sometimes media reports do not even cite objective research, but rely instead on unsupported and biased opinions of people who have an obvious ax to grind. However, they did not allow Beyerstein to explain why he believes graphology is bunk. You can be truthful, honest, and sincere, but can also exaggerate and distort the truth. Last year a number of media reports featured a Finnish study which found that vitamin E ingestion was not associated with a reduction in lung cancer in male smokers.