/ Science

Why Science?

I am totally guilty of spreading around the OMGLookIt’sAMcDonaldsHamburgerThatWon’tDie meme, but I came across a really great article today about why observation is not science:

Steve Novella writes:

Let’s consider what variables might be interesting to control for with the “rotting hamburger” question. The most obvious one would be to set out McDonald’s hamburgers (more than one so that we can at least do some statistics) and compare them to a group of hamburgers that are home cooked with known ingredients vs hamburgers from another restaurant chain. But there are other variables also. How well are the hamburgers cooked (which relates to their moisture content at the beginning of the experiment)? There are many environmental conditions that should also be controlled for, if not varied to see their effect: humidity, temperature, ventilation, and light exposure. Link

So, yeah. Let’s make a deal, you and I, to try and not just accept observations that confirm an already held bias (McDonalds can still be bad and evil for so many reasons regardless of their burger’s state of decay, or lack thereof). M’kay?

Oh, and while we are at it, let’s look at why science trumps “common sense,” regardless of what most people might believe:

My favorite line: “We may stare into infinity, but we are unprepared to comprehend it.”

On this day..