From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 08/25/02-09:08:12 AM Z
Shannon wrote:
>
In fact, I heard
> > about
> > a study that showed that if men look at women’s breasts for fifteen minutes a
> > day, it prolongs their life as much as if they jogged for thirty minutes a
> > day!
and Judy wrote:
>
> And I heard about a study that showed that doctors who liked exercise
> found that exercise helped heart attack victims, and those who didn't
> found it didn't.
I'd guess Shannon was trying to introduce some levity into the
discussion by mentioning this study; at any rate we don't know enough
about the study to dismiss it by suggesting that the researchers found
what they wanted to find. If the research were properly designed and
carried out, there would be no particular reason to question the
results, but we don't know how the study was designed, so we can't say
either that the results were probably biased, or that they were probably
not biased.
The study Judy mentions just shows what happens when you don't design a
study properly. People, not just researchers but all people, tend to see
evidence that corroborates their previously held beliefs and ignore
evidence that disconfirms their previously held beliefs. That's why we
have scientific methods, to keep us honest and circumvent our natural
tendency to see what we want to see. Unfortunately there's a lot of bad
research which is done without any regard for proper scientific methods
and research design, but that's not the fault of science but of
individual researchers who should know better.
Katharine Thayer
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