system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
as a layman outsider how do I educate myself in the social sciences?

I found some textbooks online (economics, psychology,sociology, statistics) thats a good start, and some youtube tutorials with some bits of research advice.

But my problem is: how do I judge if a paper is valid? Besides checking the statistical methods and inferences.

Like, I would love materials about basic research and "peer review" and stuff, at the moment I skim papers (read conclusion and abstract mostly) out of interest but have little ways to check if the conclusions are correct. Also im struggling with mental health, and I got nothing but a high school degree (a type that only gets you into plumbing/low level IT/military/secretary/etc)

tl;dr what resources are freely available that can make me properly read , verify and judge psychology (etc) papers?
gpt
As far as making sure papers are valid- be sure you're looking at peer reviewed journals. If you're reading secondary sources, try to look up the original papers. Scientific American and the Atlantic tend to do the best job of relaying article information.

Learning more about research methods- check out Healthcare Triage on YT. They have two playlists called "Experimental Design" and "Analysis and Reporting" which are wonderful. The guy who hosts it is a pediatrician and writes a lot about health care policy.

Happy reading!