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mandatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ "Jellybeans cause acne"

by abirch 3mo ago

mrexroad 3mo ago
I was visiting a friend’s lab at NASA Ames the other day. I smiled seeing this on the wall there. I sometimes daydream about what it’d be like if our primary education system devoted an hour a week to reading / discussing comics (well, XKCD specifically), or pages form What If…? Maybe it’d kill the magic of it, but I still feel plenty of seeds would get planted along the way for more critical thinking later in life.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 3mo ago
  I think you are on to it. The magic would die. It's a recipe for dystopia same as the Agile Manifesto was such a recipe.
pvaldes 3mo ago
Just the green ones. If they found a link, they found a link I'm sure that the comic wants to be sarcastic but is missing the mark here. This is how science works. Trying and failing every color except green, does not mean that the green experiment has an invalid result. The author is not understanding that each experiment is independent. The correct cartoon should show researchers trying green jellybeans 100 times, with 99 negative results and one positive result, and then the press keeping only the positive (Or in this comic, claiming that all jellybeans produce acne). Mocking the scientific method, and showing scientists as lazy people that play video-games is funny, but is just a cartoon, not the reality. People should not take XKCD as god's speech without any critical thinking. This in your workplace says to me "I don't really understand statistics". There is an effect that is statistically rare just by chance, AND is consistently absent within a huge control group of "non-green jellybeans" (the author seems to think that this weakens the result, but in fact is reinforcing it). And it needs further research. Not less, not more.
- dpark 3mo ago
  > If they found a link, they found a link You could have skipped the wall of text. They didn’t find a link. They found a random correlation. The scientists here essentially engaged in P-hacking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging Munroe didn’t misunderstand the independence of the experiments at all. He understands that misleading spurious results can arise from repeated experiments. > And it needs further research. Not less, not more. No it doesn’t. At least not anymore than the other colors. A positive result is no more deserving of further investigation than a negative result. What you are describing is bad science.
  - pvaldes 3mo ago
    This is exactly my point. They are not repeating experiments. Each one is a different one, and independent of the other, because the chemicals in each color are different. The cartoon don't show any data that proves that this is a random correlation, because they are not testing what you think that they are testing. Jellybeans here are irrelevant (They are present in both groups, the control and the experiment). It may be, or not be, a random correlation, we can't know at this point. And this leads us directly to the next line: > A positive result is no more deserving of further investigation than a negative result. This is not how science works. Your null hypothesis is rejected, you publish and continue trying to explain why. Otherwise you stop and try something different. Films have sold us the idea that science can be done in the countdown of a bomb, experiments take 30 seconds; and if it does not work in the first try, it means that you are not a real genius. The weird guys build a time machine in a weekend with empty cans of soda, and the hackers broke into high security buildings with a paperclip and then remove their glasses and nobody recognizes then anymore. Yeah. Master of disguise. This Big Bird costume pays for itself every time we break into the Pentagon. G'morning Mr Hegseth But this is a fantasy, not the real life. Scientists stumble and limp all the way. Even the geniuses. Specially the geniuses. And they faint at the price of the required spare part that must be ordered and imported from one, and only one, company in Finland, and will be here in five months. Meanwhile, researchers throw things to the wall to see what sticks, and laser focus on the unexpected strange result that is different in a subtle way, because their grants depend on it.

mandatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ "Jellybeans cause acne"

by abirch 3mo ago

mandatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/882/ https://xkcd.com/882/ "Jellybeans cause acne"

I was visiting a friend’s lab at NASA Ames the other day. I smiled seeing this on the wall there. I sometimes daydream about what it’d be like if our primary education system devoted an hour a week to reading / discussing comics (well, XKCD specifically), or pages form What If…? Maybe it’d kill the magic of it, but I still feel plenty of seeds would get planted along the way for more critical thinking later in life.

0xdeadbeefbabe 3mo ago
I think you are on to it. The magic would die. It's a recipe for dystopia same as the Agile Manifesto was such a recipe.

pvaldes 3mo ago

Just the green ones. If they found a link, they found a link I'm sure that the comic wants to be sarcastic but is missing the mark here. This is how science works. Trying and failing every color except green, does not mean that the green experiment has an invalid result. The author is not understanding that each experiment is independent. The correct cartoon should show researchers trying green jellybeans 100 times, with 99 negative results and one positive result, and then the press keeping only the positive (Or in this comic, claiming that all jellybeans produce acne). Mocking the scientific method, and showing scientists as lazy people that play video-games is funny, but is just a cartoon, not the reality. People should not take XKCD as god's speech without any critical thinking. This in your workplace says to me "I don't really understand statistics". There is an effect that is statistically rare just by chance, AND is consistently absent within a huge control group of "non-green jellybeans" (the author seems to think that this weakens the result, but in fact is reinforcing it). And it needs further research. Not less, not more.

dpark 3mo ago
> If they found a link, they found a link You could have skipped the wall of text. They didn’t find a link. They found a random correlation. The scientists here essentially engaged in P-hacking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging Munroe didn’t misunderstand the independence of the experiments at all. He understands that misleading spurious results can arise from repeated experiments. > And it needs further research. Not less, not more. No it doesn’t. At least not anymore than the other colors. A positive result is no more deserving of further investigation than a negative result. What you are describing is bad science.
- pvaldes 3mo ago
  This is exactly my point. They are not repeating experiments. Each one is a different one, and independent of the other, because the chemicals in each color are different. The cartoon don't show any data that proves that this is a random correlation, because they are not testing what you think that they are testing. Jellybeans here are irrelevant (They are present in both groups, the control and the experiment). It may be, or not be, a random correlation, we can't know at this point. And this leads us directly to the next line: > A positive result is no more deserving of further investigation than a negative result. This is not how science works. Your null hypothesis is rejected, you publish and continue trying to explain why. Otherwise you stop and try something different. Films have sold us the idea that science can be done in the countdown of a bomb, experiments take 30 seconds; and if it does not work in the first try, it means that you are not a real genius. The weird guys build a time machine in a weekend with empty cans of soda, and the hackers broke into high security buildings with a paperclip and then remove their glasses and nobody recognizes then anymore. Yeah. Master of disguise. This Big Bird costume pays for itself every time we break into the Pentagon. G'morning Mr Hegseth But this is a fantasy, not the real life. Scientists stumble and limp all the way. Even the geniuses. Specially the geniuses. And they faint at the price of the required spare part that must be ordered and imported from one, and only one, company in Finland, and will be here in five months. Meanwhile, researchers throw things to the wall to see what sticks, and laser focus on the unexpected strange result that is different in a subtle way, because their grants depend on it.