Thread by @BillHanage

I’ve been thinking the last few days how it’s hard for non-specialists, watching a twitter spat between apparent experts, to know who to believe. Here are a few things I bear in mind when following people outside my own field. A far from exhaustive list 1/n

The person who posts the most is not necessarily the one with the most or the best evidence. They may simply be the person with the most time. Once I'm done with this I will be making my kids dinner and spending time with them, so don't expect me to notice twitter😊 2/n

The person with the fancier credentials is not always right. Nor is it the case that every loud voice with narrow experience is bravely telling truth to power 3/n

Dubious claims like "Oh look at this complicated thing that I understand but you don't" are deployed by all sorts to suggest they are super clever, and are a tell 4/n

(in passing, every time I review a paper which airily claims to have shifted a paradigm, I point out that whether it does so or not is for others and posterity to decide, not an enthusiast high on their own supply) 5/n

And as for those pushing against the scientific consensus - just because everybody thinks you’re wrong don’t make you Galileo 6/n

Those who state “I don’t know” or “I was wrong” are far more worthy of respect than those who never do so. I’ve lost count of the things I don’t know and the things I’ve got wrong. Hopefully I’ve got others right, and I will try to learn from my mistakes 7/n

For professional scientists, publications are more important than likes or RTs. If someone is mostly pushing their ideas on social media rather than trying to get them in the scientific literature, that’s not a good sign. Nor is appealing to the court of twitter opinion 8/n

Please don’t bother guessing who I’m subtweeting; it’s nobody in particular. But reflect how many times you’ve witnessed these behaviors. There’s another reason this is not targeted at anyone especially. And it’s the last observation 9/n

Conduct matters. If someone is frequently rude to those they disagree with and especially if they target those in a position of less power, that’s a really bad sign. And while nobody can be responsible for the behavior of followers, you can refuse to condone pile ons 10/end