Life isn’t easy. You need information, hard facts, something you can base a reasoned decision on, or at least use to find which questions you want to ask the relevant specialist before making that decision. Maybe this decision needs to be made quickly. There may be a lot of money, or somebody’s future, perhaps even somebody’s life, at stake in the long run. There’s a huge database of information out there; it’s called the Internet.
The trouble is, the Internet is also a huge database of misinformation, and finding what you need can be difficult.
Some bogus claims are easy to spot. If you see the words ‘wellness’ or ‘miracle cure’ in a website supposedly dealing with health problems, you have quackery. If you see capitalised ejaculations like ‘WHAT THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW’ or the words ‘cover-up’, you can be fairly sure you’ve happened on a conspiracy-theorist site (NB: these can be hilarious, so never read them while eating or drinking). When someone starts their little speech with “I’m not a [insert discipline criticised here]” and fails to provide any explanation as to why they would be qualified to comment on a technical issue (“feeling” qualified isn’t good enough by several parsecs), you know they’re spouting ignorant opinion.
