Opinion: Science publications should use checklists, badges to signal trustworthiness
Scientists have time-honored criteria for deciding which research results to trust. Those should be conveyed with signals the public can see and understand.
Most of us rely on vetted experts, brand names, seals of approval, and other signals of trust to help us decide on matters ranging from how to treat a dental abscess to which automobile is most fuel efficient. The resources needed to distinguish trustworthy scientific findings from those that are biased, irreproducible, or even fabricated are more elusive.
That’s a problem, because the ability to make such distinctions is essential, given how relevant science is to everyday decisions such as when to vaccinate your child or whether it is safe to consume genetically engineered foods, especially in this age of misinformation.
We believe that scientists and the journals that publish
