Exercise 2: Casual vs. Genuine Research, Applied to a Real Claim — Possible Solution
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This exercise has no single correct claim to analyze - the point is
applying the chapter's own table honestly to something you actually
encountered, then checking your own reaction against it.

A worked example, using a genuinely common kind of claim ("Study finds
[specific food] cuts [specific health risk] by [specific percentage]"),
shows how the check works in practice:

- Did I start with a conclusion I already wanted to be true, and go
  looking for something that confirmed it? Or did I read the claim
  itself and ask what it was actually based on?
- Did I stop at the first post or headline that agreed with the claim,
  or did I look for anything that disagreed with it, or explained it
  differently?
- Did I treat "I saw a study mentioned" as proof on its own, or did I
  ask who ran the study, how large the sample was, and who funded it?
- Did I repeat or share the claim because many other people already
  had, or did I trace it back toward its original source first?

Most people's honest first reaction to a shared claim - including a
careful researcher's, in an unguarded moment - lands at least partly in
the "casual searching" column. That's not a personal failing; it's
exactly the gap this course exists to close through deliberate habit,
not just good intentions.

ANSWER: Answers will vary by the specific claim chosen. A genuinely
strong answer names the specific claim, honestly identifies which
column of the table the first reaction actually fell into (not which
column sounds better), and explains the reasoning using at least one
concrete row from the table rather than a vague generalization.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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This treats the table as a real diagnostic tool applied to a specific
example rather than an abstract concept restated in different words -
matching what the exercise itself asked for.