Critical Reading of the Scientific Literature

Abstract

Science and technology coexist as fractious siblings in the minds of veterinarians. Technology does all the work; science merely leads us to doubt the value and truth of what we are doing. Technology, on its own, leads us into our natural habits of wizardry. Science, carried to its logical extreme, leads us into paralyzing indecision. Nowhere is this intellectual dualism more evident than in our reading, interpretation, and application of the scientific literature. On the one hand, we can find faults with the best research paper. On the other, practitioners cannot waffle endlessly but must at some point use the information at hand to make a decision.