Flash on the pate
Whereas analysis in Eire means that hats can shield scalps from the solar (see Suggestions, 13 July), analysis in Germany means that letting rain soak your head may – simply possibly – enable you to survive if and when lightning strikes your pate.
The researchers used a wetted synthetic head, having chosen to not experiment with a wetted real human head. Their report, known as “Rain might enhance survival from direct lightning strikes to the human head”, aimed to “measure the affect of rain throughout high-energy direct lightning strikes on a practical three-compartment human head phantom”.
René Machts and colleagues say they discovered “a decrease variety of perforations and eroded areas close to the lightning strike affect factors on the pinnacle phantom when rain was utilized in comparison with no rain”.
Homeopathic comeback?
Peter Billard confirmed his son-in-law a few of Suggestions’s assortment of remarks by medical doctors as as to whether their job typically entails entertaining the affected person whereas nature does the therapeutic. The son-in-law works in a paediatric ward in Germany. He responded that “usually sufficient it’s simpler and quicker to prescribe one thing than to elucidate and argue why nothing is required. That’s definitively true for antibiotics but additionally counts for anti-cough brokers.”
Billard’s son-in-law mentions some dangers that include taking antibiotics – eventual antibiotic resistance, doable diarrhoea and different uncomfortable side effects, et cetera – then says: “Nevertheless I’ve some understanding for colleagues… who typically observe the parental want/push for antibiotics.”
Billard himself muses: “Wouldn’t it subsequently be doable to simply fob off involved dad and mom and sufferers by providing homeopathic cures? It was clearly an excellent different when it was conceived on the flip of the nineteenth century – no efficient therapy was an enormous enchancment over the standard medical therapy again in these days. Maybe it’s time for a comeback!”
Dishonesty questioned
In the event you fear about honesty, affix your seat belt and eyeglasses, and skim this merchandise.
Simply eight days earlier than Suggestions commented on the issue of getting an trustworthy appraisal of analysis about dishonesty (Suggestions, 28 September), the Journal of Advertising Analysis (JMR) printed an “expression of concern” about an article known as “The dishonesty of trustworthy folks”, which JMR printed in 2008.
The letter defined – although in terse, not-exactly-easy-to-understand language – that a big group of researchers had examined the “dishonesty of trustworthy folks” paper, main them to query its accuracy and honesty.
This brouhaha is a conflict of award winners. Dan Ariely is probably the most outstanding of the a number of co-authors of the disputed 2008 paper. In that very same 12 months, he was awarded an Ig Nobel prize for a research “demonstrating that high-priced faux medication is simpler than low-priced faux medication”.
The research criticising Ariely’s “dishonesty” research was carried out by a world group of researchers, two of whom – Bruno Verschuere and Laurent Bègue – had themselves been awarded Ig Nobel prizes. (Verschuere gained his in 2016 for a research “asking a thousand liars how usually they lie, and for deciding whether or not to imagine these solutions”. Bègue gained his in 2013 for a research “confirming, by experiment, that individuals who suppose they’re drunk additionally suppose they’re engaging”.)
The research Suggestions famous on 28 September (“The untrustworthy proof in dishonesty analysis”) was printed by František Bartoš, who was awarded an Ig Nobel prize this 12 months for a research displaying, “each in concept and by 350,757 experiments, that whenever you flip a coin, it tends to land on the identical facet because it began”.
Bartoš’s “untrustworthy proof” paper explicitly questions analysis carried out by Ariely. A kind of papers was a 2020 follow-up, known as “Signing [one’s name] firstly [of an official report] versus on the finish doesn’t lower dishonesty”, to a 2012 paper known as “Signing firstly makes ethics salient and reduces dishonest self-reports compared to signing on the finish”.
Ariely’s 2012 signature-at-top-or-bottom paper was retracted in 2021. Observers speculate as as to whether his 2020 signature-at-bottom-or-top paper might be retracted in 2029.
That’s 4 Ig Nobel prize winners, with the three most up-to-date questioning analysis printed by the earliest. Ig Nobel prizes honour issues that make folks chortle, then suppose. These standards say nothing as as to whether a factor is right or incorrect, good or unhealthy, essential or trivial. Suggestions is personally acquainted with all 4 of those Ig Nobel prize winners and might actually report that every one 4 are – as folks – considerate, charming and heat. This four-threaded tangle epitomises the research-community situation: it’s messy, contentious, typically humorous, typically disturbing, very thought-provoking and really human.
Ultimate merchandise
Marc Abrahams has written the Suggestions column each week for the previous two years. That is his remaining Suggestions column. You’ll be able to observe his different writings and actions at unbelievable.com.
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