Last week a story made round on Interwebs on how Internet Explorer users have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers. Problem with the story, IT WAS A HOAX. Bigger problem, all large media houses fell for it including CNN, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph, BBC and Forbes. The famous blogs also picked it, couple of them being The Business Insider and Mashable and the result being it featured on Techmeme also.

My guess is that this could be one of the many instances where something came from a said research house and media reported it, without verification, only difference being in this case, it was caught as an hoax. How do we trust such studies going forward. Is there a mechanism to verify the validity of these reports/surveys, even those coming from Gartner, comScore and other so far reputable research companies.