The Field Guide to Not Getting Fooled | Root to Rx

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Root to Rx

The Field Guide to
Not Getting Fooled

Every tool we have built, in one place. Free. No login. Built for the conversations you are already having.

Jump to the Tools

Evidence Tools

Copy-Paste Scripts

Root Room Scenes

Glossary Terms

Why This Exists

You are going to encounter bad health information today. Probably before lunch.

It will show up in your feed, in your group chat, in a conversation with someone you care about. It will sound confident. It may cite something that looks like a study. And if you are not equipped to evaluate it, you will either believe it, argue badly against it, or walk away frustrated.

Root to Rx exists to hand you the tools. Not to tell you what to think. To give you the equipment to find out for yourself, and to help the people around you do the same.

This page is where those tools live. It grows every time a new one is released. Bookmark it. Come back when you need it. Bring someone with you.

Start Here

Getting Rooted

If you just found Root to Rx, these three issues give you the foundation everything else is built on. Read them in order.

Issue 001, Read First

Why Distrust Is Rational

The history behind why people do not trust medicine, what actually changed, and why that history still matters for every conversation you will ever have about health.

Read Issue 001 →

Issue 003b, Read Second

The Skeptic's Toolkit

The ten questions that let you evaluate any health claim, from any source, without needing a science degree. This is the core instrument. Everything else in the Field Guide extends it.

Read Issue 003b →

Issue 004, Read Third

The Pipeline

How a molecule becomes a medicine. The full drug development pipeline explained plainly, so you understand what it actually takes before a treatment reaches a patient.

Read Issue 004 →

Your Field Equipment

The Tools

Each tool below addresses a different part of the evidence literacy challenge. Use them in sequence when you can. Use the one you need when you cannot.

Tool 01 • Evaluation

The Skeptic's Toolkit

For evaluating any health claim, from any source.

Ten questions that turn a headline or a social media post into something you can actually examine. Who funded it. Was it peer reviewed. How large was the study. Has anyone else replicated it. What does the scientific consensus say. The Toolkit does not tell you what to believe. It tells you what to look for before you decide.

This is the foundation. Every other tool in the Field Guide assumes you have read this one first.

View the Toolkit See it in action → Root Room, Issue 003b

Tool 02 • Source Evaluation

The Battlecard

For evaluating science communicators, not just claims.

Good science is getting drowned out. Bad science goes viral. The Battlecard helps you identify which communicators are actually worth following, and which ones are performing credibility without earning it. It is the Skeptic's Toolkit applied to people rather than papers.

Use it when someone cites an expert and you want to know whether that expert deserves the weight being placed on them.

View the Battlecard See it in action → Root Room, Issue 005

Tool 03 • Conversation Protocol • Coming Issue 008

PAUSE

For staying in the room long enough to use the Toolkit.

The Toolkit tells you what to ask. PAUSE tells you how to be in the room when you ask it. It is a five-step conversation protocol for moments when someone you care about is sharing something that is not true, and you want to help without triggering a shutdown. Before we argue. Let us research it together.

Releasing with Issue 008, week of June 4

Scripts for the Wild

What to Actually Say

The Toolkit gives you the questions to ask. This section gives you the words to use when you are in a live comment thread, a DM, or a conversation that is about to go sideways. Every script below is copy-paste ready. None of them are combative. All of them open a door.

Start Every Conversation Here

"Genuine question, not trying to be combative. I have been trying to understand this better myself."

When you want to ask who funded the research

"Do you know who funded the research behind this? Funding does not automatically make findings wrong, but it is one of the first things I check. It helps me understand what questions got asked and which ones did not."

When you want to ask if it was peer reviewed

"Has this been published in a peer-reviewed journal? I am not trying to dismiss it. Peer review just means other scientists had a chance to poke holes in the method before it went public. It is the difference between a claim and a finding."

When you want to ask about sample size

"How many people were in the study? A result in 20 people means something different than the same result in 20,000. Both can be interesting. They are just different kinds of evidence, and the headline usually does not tell you which one you are looking at."

When you want to ask about a control group

"Do you know if there was a control group? Without one it is hard to know if the outcome was caused by the treatment or would have happened anyway. That is not a gotcha. It is just how we tell the difference between a coincidence and a cause."

When you want to ask about replication

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¢ÇF&ÆR6Æ73Ò&Æ'&'×F&ÆR#à¢ÇFVCà¢ÇG#à¢ÇF6Æ73Ò'6ç2#ä77VSÂ÷Fà¢ÇF6Æ73Ò'6ç2#å&ö÷B&ööÒ66VæSÂ÷Fà¢ÇF6Æ73Ò'6ç2#åFööÂâÆÂ÷Fà¢ÇF6Æ73Ò'6ç2#å&VBCÂ÷Fà¢Â÷G#à¢Â÷FVCà¢ÇF&öGà¢ÇG"FF×FööÃÒ'FööÆ¶B#à¢ÇFCãÇ7â6Æ73Ò&77VRÖçVÒ#ãÂ÷7ããÂ÷FCà¢ÇFCà¢Ç7G&öæsåvF7G'W7B2&FöæÃÂ÷7G&öæsãÆ'#à¢Ç7â7GÆSÒ&föçB×6¦S£7²6öÆ÷#¢3ccc²#å6ÒçG&öGV6W2FV&'FòFRGW6¶VvVR7F÷'æBvW"6¶WF66Ò2FR7F'FæröçBÂæ÷BFR&ö&ÆVÒãÂ÷7ãà¢Â÷FCà¢ÇFCãÇ7â6Æ73Ò'FööÂÖ&FvR#å6¶WF2w2FööÆ¶CÂ÷7ããÂ÷FCà¢ÇFCãÆ&VcÒ"2#å&VBg&'#³ÂöãÂ÷FCà¢Â÷G#à¢ÇG"FF×FööÃÒ'FööÆ¶B#à¢ÇFCãÇ7â6Æ73Ò&77VRÖçVÒ#ã6#Â÷7ããÂ÷FCà¢ÇFCà¢Ç7G&öæsäVvB6Æ×2ÂöæRFööÆ¶CÂ÷7G&öæsãÆ'#à¢Ç7â7GÆSÒ&föçB×6¦S£7²6öÆ÷#¢3ccc²#å6ÒæBFV&'v÷&²F&÷VvVvBf66æR×F26FR'6FRW6ærFRFööÆ¶BVW7Föç2f÷"FRf'7BFÖRãÂ÷7ãà¢td> Skeptic's Toolkit Read → 004 The Pipeline Walk
Rooty walks Debby through the full molecule-to-medicine journey. She starts to understand why shortcuts are not actually shortcuts. Skeptic's Toolkit Read → 005 Who Do You Follow?
Debby encounters two accounts making opposite claims about the same study. Sam introduces the Battlecard to help her evaluate the sources, not just the claims. Battlecard Read → 006 Breaking the Switch
Debby watches the drug discovery stage of the Gleevec story unfold. She begins to see how far from "overnight miracle" the reality actually is. Battlecard Releasing May 21 007 Scene forthcoming Coming May 28 008 The Toolkit Is Not Enough
Debby tries to use the Toolkit on a friend and it backfires. She comes back to Sam frustrated. Sam's answer: the Toolkit tells you what to ask. PAUSE tells you how to be in the room. PAUSE Releasing June 4

Clinical Trial Registries

Find a Trial

Most people do not know they can search for clinical trials. There are 19 primary registries covering trials in virtually every country and every major disease area. All of them are free. None of them require a sign-up to search.

We mapped all of them.

Go to the Registry Map →

The Lineage

The People We Learned From

The tools in this Field Guide did not come from nowhere. They stand on decades of work by scientists, psychologists, and communicators who figured out how to reach people before we did. These are the shoulders Root to Rx stands on.

Carl Sagan

Astrophysicist and Science Communicator

His Baloney Detection Kit in The Demon-Haunted World is the grandfather of the Skeptic's Toolkit. What made Sagan exceptional was not the kit itself. It was that he led with wonder before he led with rigor. He made people feel the awe of not knowing before handing them tools to find out.

Read: The Demon-Haunted World (1995)

Hans Rosling

Physician, Statistician, and Global Health Educator

The most effective disinformation fighter of the modern era. His Factfulness framework named the specific cognitive instincts that cause intelligent people to hold systematically wrong beliefs. He never called people stupid. He named the instinct, showed how it fools everyone including experts, and then handed a corrective.

Read: Factfulness (2018)

Fred Rogers

Educator and Television Host

Before he said anything, he made people feel safe. That is not soft. That is neuroscience. People cannot receive challenging information when they are in a threat state. Rogers built psychological safety as the first step, every time. It is the thing most science communicators skip entirely.

Read: The World According to Mister Rogers (2003)

Adam Grant

Organizational Psychologist and Author

His central insight: the best communicators do not argue like prosecutors trying to win. They argue like scientists. Curious, open to being wrong, genuinely interested in what the other person believes and why. He also identified that the fastest way to get someone to reconsider a belief is to make them feel understood first, not corrected.

Read: Think Again (2021)

George Lakoff

Cognitive Linguist

Facts do not persuade. Frames do. People evaluate new information through existing cognitive frames, and if the information does not fit the frame, the frame usually wins. The communicator's job is to offer a better frame, not win an argument inside the existing one. This insight underpins the Reframe Card, coming to this Field Guide in late 2026.

Read: Don't Think of an Elephant (2004)

Brene Brown

Research Professor and Author

People reject information when receiving it would require them to feel ashamed of what they previously believed. The communicators who break through do not make people feel stupid for being wrong. They make changing your mind feel like growth, not defeat. The PAUSE protocol is built on this principle.

Read: Daring Greatly (2012)

Clinical Research Glossary

20 Terms They Use That You Should Know

You will encounter these terms in study headlines, doctor conversations, and clinical trial listings. Here is what they actually mean.

No terms match your search.

Clinical Trial

A research study that tests a medical intervention in human volunteers to evaluate whether it is safe and effective. All approved medicines go through this process before reaching patients.

Informed Consent

The process by which a participant voluntarily confirms their willingness to take part in a trial after being told everything relevant about what it involves, including risks. It is not a one-time signature. It is an ongoing process.

IRB (Institutional Review Board)

An independent committee that reviews, approves, and monitors research involving human subjects. Its primary job is to protect participants. No trial runs without IRB approval.

Phase I Trial

The first human testing of a new treatment, typically in a small group of 20 to 80 people. The goal is to evaluate safety and find the right dose, not to prove the treatment works.

Phase II Trial

A larger study, typically 100 to 300 people, that begins to assess whether the treatment shows signs of effectiveness while continuing to monitor safety.

Phase III Trial

The large-scale trial, often thousands of participants across multiple sites, that provides the primary evidence of whether a treatment is effective and safe enough to seek regulatory approval.

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT)

The gold standard study design. Participants are randomly assigned to the treatment group or a control group. Random assignment removes bias that would otherwise skew results.

Control Group

The group in a study that does not receive the treatment being tested. They may receive a placebo, an existing standard treatment, or nothing. Without a control group, you cannot determine whether the treatment caused the outcome.

Placebo

An inactive substance or procedure that looks identical to the treatment being tested. Used in control groups to eliminate the psychological effect of receiving any treatment at all.

Double-Blind Study

A study in which neither the participants nor the researchers administering the treatment know who is in which group. This prevents expectation from influencing results on either side.

Peer Review

The process by which a study is evaluated by independent experts in the same field before it is published in a scientific journal. It is not a guarantee of correctness, but it is a meaningful quality check.

Endpoint

The specific outcome a trial is designed to measure. A primary endpoint might be survival at five years. Secondary endpoints might include quality of life or side effect rates. Knowing the endpoint helps you understand what a result actually means.

Adverse Event

Any undesirable medical experience that occurs during a clinical trial, whether or not it is related to the treatment. Adverse events are tracked, reported, and reviewed as part of safety monitoring.

Efficacy vs. Effectiveness

Efficacy is how well a treatment works under controlled trial conditions. Effectiveness is how well it works in the real world. A treatment can be highly efficacious in a trial and less effective in practice. Both matter.

Correlation vs. Causation

Two things can be associated without one causing the other. A study that shows a correlation means two variables move together. A study that demonstrates causation proves one variable directly produces the other. Headlines frequently confuse the two.

Meta-Analysis

A statistical method that combines results from multiple studies on the same question to produce a stronger overall conclusion. A meta-analysis of ten studies carries more weight than any single study it includes.

Confidence Interval

A range within which the true result is likely to fall, given the sample size and variability in the data. A wider confidence interval means more uncertainty. A narrower one means the estimate is more precise.

P-Value

A measure of the probability that a result occurred by chance. A p-value below 0.05 is the conventional threshold for statistical significance. It does not tell you whether the result is clinically meaningful or practically important.

CRO (Contract Research Organization)

A company that provides outsourced clinical research services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Most large trials are run by or with the support of a CRO. They are a major part of the infrastructure that runs between a drug candidate and an approved medicine.

Principal Investigator (PI)

The physician or scientist responsible for the conduct of a clinical trial at a specific site. The PI is accountable for the integrity of the data collected and the welfare of participants enrolled at their site.

Go Deeper

Eight books that go further than this Field Guide can. Not an algorithm-optimized list. A genuine curriculum, in the order we would hand it to you.

The Demon-Haunted World

Carl Sagan, 1995

The book that started this. Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit is still the best single framework for critical thinking ever written for a general audience. Read this first if you have not.

Factfulness

Hans Rosling, 2018

Ten instincts that make smart people systematically wrong about the world, and how to correct for each of them. The most useful book on the gap between what we believe and what the data says.

Think Again

Adam Grant, 2021

The science of changing minds, including your own. Grant's central argument is that the ability to unlearn and rethink is the most undervalued skill of this era. The PAUSE protocol is applied Grant.

Bad Science

Ben Goldacre, 2008

A British physician's systematic takedown of how bad science gets made, marketed, and believed. Includes a detailed chapter on how to read a drug trial that is more useful than any methodology course.

The Influential Mind

Tali Sharot, 2017

A neuroscientist's account of what actually changes minds, which is rarely the evidence itself. Sharot shows that emotion, incentives, and social dynamics are the real levers. Essential for understanding why facts alone do not work.

Don't Think of an Elephant

George Lakoff, 2004

The shortest and most practical book on framing ever written. Lakoff explains why the frame determines how information lands, and why presenting facts inside the wrong frame makes them useless or even counterproductive.

Daring Greatly

Brene Brown, 2012

The shame research. Understanding why people cannot hear new information when they feel they will have to feel ashamed of their old beliefs is foundational to everything PAUSE is built on.

How to Talk to a Science Denier

Lee McIntyre, 2021

The most operationally specific book on this list. McIntyre spent time at flat-earth conventions and climate denier meetings to test what actually works in face-to-face conversations. The answer is mostly PAUSE, before PAUSE had a name.

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The Field Guide toNot Getting Fooled

Getting Rooted

Why Distrust Is Rational

The Skeptic's Toolkit

The Pipeline

The Tools

The Skeptic's Toolkit

The Battlecard

PAUSE

What to Actually Say

Find a Trial

The People We Learned From

20 Terms They Use That You Should Know

Go Deeper

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