In the case that medical sources are unavailable, are non-medical sources permissible? If so, what minimum criteria must a non-medical source meet to be considered appropriate - for instance, must it at the very least cite sources? Is this okay in certain scenarios such when answering a question on the MOA of a drug (again when there is no alternative), but not in higher risk situations?
My recent answer on Can caffeine induce sleepiness instead of wakefulness? has prompted this query.
That question is is quite a bit too narrowly phrased. Not everything that might benefit from backup from other sources needs to be 'medical' or sometimes can be medical.
Illustrating a point about different plant species in an answer about phyto-therapy can give you a hard time finding online medical sources. Contrasting supposedly common knowledge or basic facts with medical advice or medical research can give you a hard time backing it up with online medical sources alone. Sometimes a medical source exists, but it is either behind paywalls or it is simply not online at all.
The point is, anyone striving to provide an answer is regarded as someone having a say because she knows something. Something more than the asker, something more or in addition or improving on, correcting previous answers. Furthering the discussion.
Mere statements are not very helpful in these cases. Arguments need some kind of backup most of the time. Pointing out a logical flaw in a line of reasoning might be sufficiently called out by explaining why you think it is flawed. But when discussing the pros and cons regarding certain effects of certain drugs then you have to start to look at hard data, work other people have done, published material. And quote that, refer to that, give links to that. We need the transparency most. Everyone should form his own opinion.
As an answer poster you are also a judge, a gate-keeper an evaluator of the material available to you, of your own knowledge. As such it is up to you to find the best evidence, the strongest argument the best data to backup your claims, your arguments or reasoning. Low quality sources are permitted! Low quality sources are miserable and shine a bad light on your answer and on you.
That is why we need reliable sources. If you want to backup your claim about the molecular weight, structure or solubility of say caffeine then medical sources might not be the easiest to accomplish what you want to say.
Peripheral sources I would like to call them should be fine to illustrate, to give context to weigh the arguments. Central claims need reliable sources central to the field of discussion. One might contrast yellow press articles with what The Lancet or a research run over PubMed has to say about a certain topic. It will be fruitless to just refer to two TV hosts statements to backup your statement.
You do not know or have the truth. Your sources do not have or know the truth.- Everyone is entitled to his own stupidity. Or geniality. There is always room for improvement.
