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Except this isn't an experiment, where they control the conditions. It's monitoring natural behavior. Just saying "placebo" makes no sense for this kind of stud

by mejari 9y ago

Except this isn't an experiment, where they control the conditions. It's monitoring natural behavior. Just saying "placebo" makes no sense for this kind of study. That'd be like asking for a placebo in a national poll. The kind of thing you're talking about would be an experiment, where they bring people in and use various measures to quantify various types of intelligence after smoking marijuana. In that situation yes you could use a placebo as one group. But even then it's not always appropriate, and just skimming an article and dismissing it by saying "no placebo!" makes no sense. Not all experiments do use or should use a placebo as part of their methodology, and this isn't even an experiment.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
> "But even then it's not always appropriate" It can be appropriate it you get consent to be part of the experiment. You don't have to have the whole student body be part of the experiment.
- mejari 9y ago
  What is your point? I said that it's _not always_ appropriate, not that it is _always not_ appropriate. And the ability to do it is not the sole deciding factor on whether it is appropriate.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
> "this isn't an experiment" Well then this "study" is just an observation. So it probably doesn't warrant the amount of attention it is getting, to say nothing of people using this "study" as evidence. Observation is an early step of the scientific method, but now they need to perform a scientific experiment in order to make this newsworthy. (Well I guess it is "newsworthy" in that it makes for high click-through...)
- mejari 9y ago
  >Well then this "study" is just an observation. Yes. Many studies are. > So it probably doesn't warrant the amount of attention it is getting, to say nothing of people using this "study" as evidence. It seems like you lack an understanding of how science works? Because the fact that this is an observation doesn't mean that it isn't evidence. Observation is like one of they key kinds of evidence. >but now they need to perform a scientific experiment in order to make this newsworthy No they don't. That's not how this works, at all. It's still valid meaningful evidence. I mean, do you ever read stories about stellar discoveries? Do you think they aren't worth reading because they didn't do an experiment to re-create the black hole they discovered in a lab?

by mejari 9y ago

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

> "But even then it's not always appropriate" It can be appropriate it you get consent to be part of the experiment. You don't have to have the whole student body be part of the experiment.

mejari 9y ago
What is your point? I said that it's _not always_ appropriate, not that it is _always not_ appropriate. And the ability to do it is not the sole deciding factor on whether it is appropriate.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

> "this isn't an experiment" Well then this "study" is just an observation. So it probably doesn't warrant the amount of attention it is getting, to say nothing of people using this "study" as evidence. Observation is an early step of the scientific method, but now they need to perform a scientific experiment in order to make this newsworthy. (Well I guess it is "newsworthy" in that it makes for high click-through...)

mejari 9y ago
>Well then this "study" is just an observation. Yes. Many studies are. > So it probably doesn't warrant the amount of attention it is getting, to say nothing of people using this "study" as evidence. It seems like you lack an understanding of how science works? Because the fact that this is an observation doesn't mean that it isn't evidence. Observation is like one of they key kinds of evidence. >but now they need to perform a scientific experiment in order to make this newsworthy No they don't. That's not how this works, at all. It's still valid meaningful evidence. I mean, do you ever read stories about stellar discoveries? Do you think they aren't worth reading because they didn't do an experiment to re-create the black hole they discovered in a lab?