Science Feedback is a not-for-profit organization verifying the credibility of influential claims and media coverage that claims to be scientific, starting with the topics of climate and health. Checking information that claims to be based on sound science. Their first mission is to help create an Internet where users will have access to scientifically sound and trustworthy information. We also provide feedback to editors and journalists about the credibility of information published by their outlets.
Their mission is pedagogical: They strive to explain whether and why information is or is not consistent with the science. They purport to be nonpartisan and apply the same methodology to claims made in a variety of media outlets, as well as exposing claims that either contradict or over-hype science. They conclude that it is scientists’ civic duty to better inform our fellow citizens in their areas of expertise. Each of the reviewers contributing to their analyses holds a Ph.D., or equivalent, and has recently published articles in top-tier peer-reviewed science journals. They are asked to conform to high-quality community standards to contribute to their analyses.
They invite scientists with relevant expertise to comment on media articles that contain science-based information, adding contextual information and highlighting factual inaccuracies and faulty reasoning where they exist. Science Feedback editors provide a clearly stated summary of the scientists’ comments. To complete the analysis, scientists evaluate articles and provide a credibility score based on accuracy, logic, objectivity, and factual precision—giving readers an overall guide to the scientific credibility of the article.
Science Feedback editors provide a clearly stated summary of the scientists’ comments. They call these analyses “Scientific Feedbacks”. All Feedbacks are archived on their sites, creating a useful resource for anyone to easily compare and contrast the credibility of different news sources, and promoting the most reliable sources of information and insightful journalism.
Science Feedback is paving the way for a new kind of fact-checking, crowdsourced directly from scientists with relevant expertise, providing in-depth analysis on a whole article, as well as “fact-checking” a number of claims at once. Beyond checking the facts, special attention is given to checking the quality of the logic and reasoning to analyze and expose logical flaws and rhetorical manipulation.
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