Its exactly this. We covered in nursing school how to read a research paper and what things to look for to find limitations and biases that were either intentionally hidden or overlooked, or just to be able to properly contextualize what we're reading.

A good example from my specific specialty is antipsychotic drug trials. One of the examples they showed in class was a study that "proved" that Risperdal had a more benign side effect profile than Haldol... by giving normal doses of risperdal and insane doses of haldol. So of course the Haldol had more side effects, they were giving way more of it than most patients would ever be taking. Iirc they said something like 20mg 2x daily, and I can count on one hand the number of patients I've had on that high of a dose and every single one of them had injured multiple staff members.

Meanwhile the Risperdal group was on like 8mg, which for Risperdal is on the higher end, but not wtf range like 20 of Haldol (it is important to note that dosages can vary wildly between different medications even within the same class; I take seroquel which is in the same class AND generation as Risperdal, but I take 50mg and that's a tiny dose for seroquel, because I'm taking it to sleep for shift work, a true antipsychotic dose would be 400-800mg. The lack of direct equivalency between many medications even within the same class makes this particular type of misdirection easy).

So yeah, the line between "hacks selling poison" and "scientists in search of the truth" is not as cut and dry as it should be and can require a fair amount of both critical thinking and specialized knowledge to sus out. Wether or not you think the average person should have those knowledge and skills, the fact of the matter is that they don't. That's why it's important to have well-vetted academics doing the research and reviewing each other's work, and giving them a platform to gain the public's trust then educate them. The problem is a lot of people in power right now really do not want the public educated about anything, because that would make them harder to control and abuse.