SierraRocks, your biochemist friend observed something that they drilled into our heads in grad school for psychology. It's about a study that took place in the late 80s/early 90s.
While I may have a few specifics wrong when I tell the story, the overall point is correct.(going by memory.)
In the late 80s an MIT graduate student was doing her dissertation on brain cell regeneration. Or how brain cells can't regenerate once they are lost. Neural pathways can reroute themselves, but the cells themselves do not regenerate. Science is known that brain cells don't regenerate for more than 100 years.
We know that because one French scientist long ago said so. Everybody just assumed he was correct.
The woman develops a pretty gruesome experiment and proved that brain cells regenerate rather quickly. And it has been replicated many times and because of her our paradigm changed.
Another point, and a lot of researchers in the Paranormal fields are guilty of this; take one isolated data point or observation, and amplify it in to some pretty wild theories. And then call it logical fact.
In psychological circles the behaviorists do this with rats. Lab rats have some pretty basic needs. They don't join together and put a man on the moon. Behaviorists must ignore an incalculable number of variables to make their claims relating isolated rat behavior to human beings.
Don't get me started on manipulating statistics..........
Anyway, when I listen to the shows I bounce between having fun with some of the (ludicrous) guests, all the way to throwing radios.
Not to beat a dead horse, but there are a couple other dodges used frequently in the community to mask poorly researched/documented work. How many times have you heard a paranormal "researcher" crow about the number of footnotes and referenced source materials are included in their book/article? They seem to think a lot of footnotes/references make their work credible. They might not be credible, but there are damn sure a lot of them....quantity v. quality
A number of these folks have also put forward their ideas/conspiracies in works of fiction. In my opinion, this is often done to pass off their shoddy, third rate research as novels, as opposed to nonfiction works. By using the novel format, they are able to avoid those pesky footnotes and references to support their inferences and unsubstantiated theories. They can then have the best of both worlds, claim the various tenets of their work are real, but hide behind fiction.