Saturday, May 26, 2012

Quote of the Day: LabRat

Over on Atomic Nerds LabRat digs into some clumsy research that confounds evolutionary reasons with sociological reasons and mixes up sex with reproduction.

Give it a read.

Why is it the people saying “IT’S JUST SCIENCE YOU CAN’T ARGUE WITH IT” are almost always citing lazy, shoddy science?

Confirmation bias and the desire for a handy argumentum ad verecundiam club?

It also shows a deep ignorance of science because the whole point of "just science" is to argue with it.

Say I conduct Experiment X and come to the conclusion that A often causes B.

People are going to want to tear into my experimental procedure and data. They'll want to do their own copy of Experiment X. They'll try Experiment Y and Z which while different from X should produce similar data vis a vis A and B.

They'll also look into the results of X and that relationship between A and B. As if there is even a correlation let alone causation.

Just because you have an experiment that has a certain conclusion doesn't mean you can shout down anyone else and that the debate is over and the science is settled.

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