“Sometimes studies on entirely different topics are cited”

Your podcast frequently covers questionable food supplements, strange products with awesome-sounding benefits, and supposedly gentler “alternative” healing methods. Where does “scientific nonsense” begin for you? 

Jonathan Focke: There are a whole lot of factors. It starts with charlatans and manufacturers of miracle cures and takes us all the way to politicians trying to minimise the relevance of climate change. 

Maximilian Doeckel: The core element is always someone claiming that something is backed up by science, that there are studies. So we take a closer look and often find that there is, in fact, no supporting evidence. 

How do you go about debunking nonsense? 

Doeckel: The most important step is that we read the cited scientific studies very closely. The abstract – the short summary at the top of the article – often already indicates whether the results are even halfway related to the claims being made.

Focke: Sometimes, studies are cited that are actually about a completely different topic. That’s particularly odd. In general, we always look at the methodology. How many participants were included in the study? Was there a control group? Often, animal studies are simply cited, for instance studies on mice or rats, if a small effect was found. Then the claim is often: “Wow, look at that! This effect is surely also the same for humans.” But that’s false. In most cases, the results from animal experiments cannot simply be transferred to humans.

Why not? 

Focke: Animal experiments are important, especially when it comes to potentially harzardous substances or medication. Nobody suggests to immediately test these on humans, but in the end, a mouse or a rat is not a human being. So you simply cannot simply transfer the results one-to-one. The organisms are simply too different. That means you cannot say that if a substance works this way on a rat, it will have the same effect on a human.

“Quarks Science Cops” started in late 2020, during the COVID pandemic. The first episodes therefore often dealt with the pandemic and the virus. Are there things from this initial phase that still render you stunned? 

Doeckel: The main thing was the anger and hatred that we were hit with. Just because we said that COVID is a real problem and it’s dangerous. The comments we got said things like “You’ll be the first ones hanged when the tides turn.” Even our families received threats. So that was very shocking to us. Fortunately, that has calmed down a bit now. 

That sounds threatening. But it can also be dangerous for the people who believe all the scientific nonsense, right? 

Focke: This is the issue with all “alternative medicine” treatments and remedies, which is also something we cover on the show. Homoeopathic remedies or healing salts, for instance. Many of these treatments are not dangerous in the sense that they cause direct harm, they simply do not work beyond the placebo effect.