You don't need to be a "scientist" in order to apply logic and common sense to data. Many people do it all the time in their various endeavors in life.

And even though one might not be a "scientist", you cannot take for granted what some scientist or study proposes as a finding.

An example of this.

About a year ago I read a headline something like "Organic Food No More Nutritious". I read on, as I am interested in this, for the health of my family and I.

In the study they grew tomatoes or something in identical soil with and without pesticides. Then what they tested for was nutritional content of the tomatoes.

Now anyone who knows much about "organic" foods knows that there are at least two facets to the whole idea. One is to reduce the potential toxins, like pesticides. The other would be to maximize the nutritional value of food.

To study if pesticides alone affect nutritional content is sort of like a study to see if you kick your dog does your goldfish swim faster. Maybe sort of useful, but really missing the point.

Now if you wanted to study if different farming practices (like types of fertilizer, soil types) affected nutrition, now that might be useful to somebody somewhere.

To conceive, design, fund, perform, analyze, publish, and broadcast a study like that seems to me like a big waste of time, money, tomatoes, and the paper the study was published on.

Was it politically motivated? I don't know. But it begs the question.