One of the things that I've learned during my scientific training is how to find the background information that I need to understand a new scientific subject, and how to identify the unresolved issues in the field. My own troubles completing these tasks made me wonder how hard this must be for someone who isn't immersed in scientific culture like I am, so in this blog post I'd like to discuss strategies and resources for teaching yourself about scientific topics.

I see three basic levels of scientific development from which a person may approach this problem: expert, informed, or naive. I will mainly focus on the problems facing the second group, but will have scattered thoughts related to the other group.

: those who are understand basic scientific terminology and processes, but want to learn more about some issue. These people are often called "scientifically literate" and may be focused on issues such as a disease being faced by someone they know, or some issue related to public policy.

Staying informed: good sources
Scientific American, this blog, Economist science section, NYT Science,  Science and Nature
Slashdot (just an aggregator)

Researching a specific issue:

Finding relevant sources, and know the limits to their credibility .

Authority: Reports from the national academies (Science, Engineering, Medicine)
Accessibility: Wikipedia.

NIH, CDC, hospitals, university collections
PubMed books

Textbooks (university level ... high school is often politicized and outdated)

Research journals (primary, reviews, PLoS primers)
PLoS Collections and Primers: authoritative but more accessible than other writings in research journals. Book reviews.

What scientists do (10 rules)

Sensationalism-- cannot take for granted that mainstream publications are reliable:
http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/07/more-crummy-sci.html
http://scepticsbook.com/2009/01/24/speaking-of-making-shit-upa-case-of-s...
http://www.goodbadandbogus.com/bad-journalism/new-study-highlights-compl...

sloppiness or overly political:
http://www.science20.com/adaptive_complexity/ny_times_hits_rockbottom_cl...

Not even considering the effect of marketing and the sometimes dif6ficulty in distinguishing the two (Greenwald, Beck and Gold).

Identifying common errors:
http://www.badscience.net/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/series/badscience
http://scepticsbook.com/