It's easy to fool the layperson with outrageous claims and fancy packaging. But you can't fool the experts, can you? If 90 percent of all the experts in a field recommend something, who are we to disagree? We're just poor fucking laypeople.
What it actually means:
They managed to find nine people to recommend their product who they could also label "experts," and then threw in one more so it didn't look like they were faking the whole thing. And even that very low bar comes with quite a few caveats.
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"They just had me recommend it nine different times while wearing different name tags and wigs."
First: Many of those experts helped to develop and sell products for those very companies. Dentists, for instance, often help to develop the toothpastes that nine out of 10 dentists recommend. And they'd be out a nice side income if they couldn't help develop a product that met their own standards.
But even when the experts aren't being paid by the company in question, the claim provides no context for the expert opinion: We may picture dentists systematically testing assorted toothpastes in a rigorous battle-royale of tooth protection, but in truth, it's more likely to be just a survey of the dentists who decided to attend the product launch conference.
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"I didn't really try this one yet, but they gave me a tote bag."
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