BS: Absurd Research

Subject: BS: Absurd Research
From: Ed Pellow
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 01:19 PM

Sometimes 'joe public' considers academic research to be a waste of money because they don't understand what the research is actually trying to do. The The Large Hadron Collider is a good example. I have no real understanding of what they are trying to do, but for better or worse I trust them.

Today, I came across a BBC News article reporting that a University Professor had concluded that:

"Research shows that an individual's travel choices are bound up with many factors including their personality, habits, family structure and social networks."

My God! Had I only realised that before!

Someone paid him for this...

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 01:33 PM

"Professor Lyons, director of the transport research society at UWE, said the two characters illustrated the range of individual behaviour among the travelling public.
"Mr Spock is the archetype of logic - he wants to be in possession of all the facts so he can make the best possible decisions when taking a trip," he said.
"Homer Simpson, on the other hand, thinks that making trips is no big deal. As long as things work out he has many other things on his mind besides 'optimising' his travel."

From the same paper, which offers the stunning thought that people either manage the details of their travel carefully (Spock model) or carelessly (Simpson model). I agree this is hardly a conclusion woth anyone's salary.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 01:57 PM

A very smart fellow, I forget who, once said 1) If a study, especially in the behavorial sciences, offers results which defy common sense, it probably wrong; 2) If it confirms common wisdom, it was probably unnecessary and wasteful as to time and money spent; and 3) Too many people will believe a study, because they don't trust their own knowledge and common sense.

I agree.

Merry and Happy to everybody.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: gnu
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 03:42 PM

Sometimes, research is done simply to train new researchers.

I am sure you could find a study on this in the literature if you research it.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 03:59 PM

Anybody here care to go look up what that paper *actually* said rather than what the tabloids reported it as saying?

I know all newspapers are garbage at reporting mathematics and physical science, since that's what I'm most familiar with. (No British paper ever reports a story involving basic chemistry without fucking up to such an extent that they'd fail any school exam aimed at 15-year-olds). I don't see why I should trust them to be any more accurate in reporting social science, particularly since they'll process everything to fit their ideology to a far greater extent.

I would bet that marketing executives in the travel industry know exactly how to make use of this piece of research.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: Amos
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 04:14 PM

A good point, Jack. The story makes the paper look meretricious; but that does not mean it is.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 05:11 PM

The BBC puts the comments in "quotes" which should mean that they're taken from his paper.

Here he is by the way. I can't help thinking that he looks a bit like Tim van Eyken but maybe that's just me...

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 07:16 PM

I just learned yesterday that CNN has eliminated their entire Science/Environment reportorial staff.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: pdq
Date: 20 Dec 08 - 07:20 PM

"...CNN has eliminated their entire Science/Environment reportorial staff."

Actually, their pet lab rat died. It was a poor typist anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 10:22 AM

Sounds like a topic worth researching!!

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 10:48 AM

Market research aimed as US-- the two kinds of vacation spenders-- see? Which kind of ads to run?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 10:58 AM

I remember reading a study of the effect of fiber on native Africans' diets. This guy got paid to follw around members of an African tribe and measure the size of their feces. His conclusion: more fiber, bigger turds.
I could have told him that.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 12:50 PM

A number of year ago, a guy got a grant (something like $20,000) to investigate "Why children fall off of tricycles" (the old type of tricycle)

He concluded that 'Tricycles have too high a high center of gravity and don't turn easily. ...and children tend to be careless and ride too fast and lack coordination'

soon thereafter, the little low, plastic tricycles appeared. I'd have explained it for $500.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 07:58 PM

Sinsull, you have been completely misinformed about the African fibre thing. The researcher in question was Denis Burkitt, who first discovered the aetiology of Burkitt's lymphoma (which thanks to his work has gone from certain death to being almost always easily curable).

At the time Burkitt was working, very few doctors had any idea that fibre was good for anything, and standard nutritional advice was to avoid it as far as possible. Burkitt noticed that some diseases of Western civilization were much rarer in Africa and set out finding why. He was dedicated enough to take scaled photos of turds so he could correlate their size with the local disease pattern. The result of years of work was the modern pictuire of what fibre does for you, which was almost enturely due to just two researchers, Burkitt and J.P. Cleave (who investigated the patterns of illness he saw as a surgeon in the British Army). Burkitt was NOT paid to do his African fibre research, he did it in his own time while working on cancer epidemiology. It was far outside the medical paradigms of the period and nobody could have got funded to work on it.

As filtered umpteenth-hand through the garbage media you've been exposed to and been credulous enough not to question, a research career that has saved thousands of people's lives and caused a huge reduction in avoidable chronic illness ends up being dismissed as a trivial obsession with scatology.

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: olddude
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 08:04 PM

I have a better one
In Western NY the state did a study on pot holes in the road. Their conclusion was ..

1. They are dangerous and can cause accidents
2. The highway authority should take all necessary means of repairing them when they are reported


Wow, such brain power .. I am glad our tax dollars went to the experts to tell us that. I would have never ever guessed

Subject: RE: BS: Absurd Research
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Dec 08 - 09:19 AM

Jack,
The reasearch I wrote about took place in the late 70s early 80s and was funded. It appeared in a newspaper report about wasted federal government money.

FOX today reports the results of a Japanese study - teenagers who do not eat breakfast lose their virginity sooner than those who do. I suppose it is related to a more stable home life.