With some basic science training, you should be able to read the paper itself, see how they constructed the experiment, and have some idea if they did a good jo

With some basic science training, you should be able to read the paper itself, see how they constructed the experiment, and have some idea if they did a good job. And this is without knowing much about the specific field. Did they have a big enough sample size, etc. The press that reports on science could help with this too, but it is unfortunate they seem mostly useless in helping to provide a critical eye.