• Hazmatastic@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Looks like they put off the science fair project for too long and had to throw this little number together the weekend before. Been there, I still remember mine: what genre of music will cats like? Hypothesis: classical. Result: hard rock. Sampled 4 cats over 5 genres, took an hour. Methodology was crap. Sample size was crap. It was a non-experiment that scraped a “you tried” grade

  • Gork@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    There should be more value placed in publishing things that didn’t work as hypothesized. That way scientists in the future can know if a particular approach just doesn’t work.

    Something like this, but completely normalized in the scientific world, where it’s ok to publish attempts, whether they succeed or not.

    • iAvicenna@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      yea unfortunately publishing science (in certain levels) unfortunately now involves %50 razmatazz, %30 having some well established coauthor and %20 over selling. It has turned into a weird ecosystem that feeds on resource (jobs) scarcity in academia and makes insane profits for publishers.

      Not surprised it attracted all kinds of vultures that feed on the scraps (predatory publishers). It is really smelling decay and puss from a mile away.

      • Troy@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        I had a null result for my MSc thesis. My supervisor lost interest immediately, and my funding went away. No interest in publishing a failure on his side, because the premise was flawed and he provided the premise. I dropped out and went to industry rather than be student poor with no funding.

    • jeffhykin@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      I think we can agree “Good reseach” is in the how-its-done. I wish journals would chose/require/verify the how-its-done (time frame, resources, hypothesis, method etc) but after that be contractually required publish whatever conclusion is discovered by the team/project they picked and verified.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    8 months ago

    The thing that blew my mind most based on what I thought would happen when put to the test, was that elephants really are frightened of mice. I would have swore that was just a dumb cartoon trope and IRL the elephant wouldn’t even give a shit.

    • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I’m pretty sure that was in the ‘yes, but also no’ category. IIRC, they don’t see very well and small fast things on the ground spook them, probably because snakes. Pick a mouse up and bring it up high enough for the elephant to get a good look at it and they’re fine with it.

      • ridago@programming.dev
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        8 months ago

        From what I remember they hypothesised that, but then put it to the test by having something else small move in front of the elephant and it didn’t care. Further confirming it was the mouse it was afraid of

    • kamenLady.@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I always had this with the story of field workers using masks in the back of their heads, in order to deter tigers from attacking from behind. I just couldn’t imagine the tiger falling for it.

      • rockerface 🇺🇦@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        A lot of animals have bright spots in the back of their heads that kinda look like eyes, to deter predators. Actually, I believe tigers themselves have fake eyes on the back of their ears

    • thelasttoot@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Have you never watched mythbusters? Are we at a point in time where the Mythbusters are ancient history and not simply common knowledge? OMG what year is it? How old am I?

  • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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    8 months ago

    In April 2019, a Twitter post by Pyle from 2017 resurfaced regarding the pro-life rally March For Life. According to some reporters, Pyle’s tweet expressed support for, or defended, March For Life. The tweet caused many fans to turn against Strange Planet and its creator, in a controversy described by at least one outlet as an example of the Milkshake Duck phenomenon.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Continuing the Wikipedia quote for context

      Pyle released a statement shortly afterwards which did not mention abortion, but said that he and his wife “have private beliefs as they pertain to our Christian faith. We believe separation of church and state is crucial to our nation flourishing.” He also stated they voted for the Democratic Party, and were “troubled by what the Republican Party has become and [did] not want to be associated with it.”[25][26][27]

      • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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        8 months ago

        I’m sure all the women rendered dead or permanently infertile by the abortion bans passed since then can appreciate the nuance of Pyle’s belief in the separation of church and state. /s

        • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Honestly, I think it’s 100% reasonable, and is basically the same thing Biden says. He says they’re Catholic and personally do not believe in abortion, but that he also believes his religious beliefs shouldn’t be shoved on Americans and shouldn’t be the basis for legislation. I don’t have an issue with anyone who feels abortion is wrong, I just take issue if they force that belief on everyone else.

          • exocrinous@startrek.website
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            8 months ago

            It’s not reasonable for him to say “my beliefs are private” and also support an anti abortion rally in public.

          • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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            8 months ago

            He says they’re Catholic and personally do not believe in abortion, but that he also believes his religious beliefs shouldn’t be shoved on Americans and shouldn’t be the basis for legislation.

            Then what was he doing at an anti-abortion rally?

            • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I was talking about Biden. This guy said they voted Democratic. I don’t know more than what was in Wikipedia.

        • wise_pancake@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          You can be pro life and still see that those policies are needlessly cruel.

          There’s a big gap you can fall into while being pro life between forcing women to carry dead fetuses until they become horribly sick and suggesting that healthy fetuses be carried but maybe given up for adoption. Plus you can be against abortion privately without suggesting it be banned altogether.

          Honestly his response there sounds like he’s not one of those insane people.

          • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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            8 months ago

            You can be pro life and still see that those policies are needlessly cruel.

            Not reallly, the whole notion of anti-abortion politics is that the rights of pregnant people are secondary to the rights of fetuses. It’s cruel by definition.

            There’s a big gap you can fall into while being pro life between forcing women to carry dead fetuses until they become horribly sick and suggesting that healthy fetuses be carried but maybe given up for adoption.

            Both ends of that “gap” involve an eliminaton of the right to bodily autonomy for anyone that is or might become pregnant.

            Honestly his response there sounds like he’s not one of those insane people.

            It sounds like he wants to distance himself from the slow-rolling clusterf&%k that is the state of abortion rights in this country without distancing himself from his anti-Christian belief that life begins at conception. The Bible itself has a recipe for herbal abortifacients, prescribes their use for cases of infidelity, and suggests no less than three times that life begins at first breath.

            • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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              8 months ago

              Ooh, you don’t happen to know a verse for this, do you? I’ve heard this before and tried to Google it, but my Google fu is lacking and I just end up finding right wing nut job websites.

                • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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                  8 months ago

                  Thanks! That dust on the floor I’m guessing is basically poison, lye and the ashes from other offerings. That’s wild.

                  Is there a verse specific to when life begins? I’ve read that it’s upon drawing breath, but that’s the part I haven’t been able to find.

          • FfaerieOxide@kbin.social
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            8 months ago

            You can be pro life and still see that those policies are needlessly cruel.

            “pro-life” is those policies.

          • clearleaf@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            In America there are two acceptable views.

            1. Alive at conception
            2. It’s ok to kill a fully born baby as long as it hasn’t breathed yet

            Both came from religion. I can see why some people pick the first one when given only these two options. You wouldn’t want to be a le enlightened centrist after all.

  • Lucien [hy/hym, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    I wish more people would publish their failures. Definitive proof that a hypothesis is wrong is just as solid a result as definitive proof the hypothesis is right.

    • emptiestplace@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I wish more people would publish their failures.

      Agree.

      Definitive proof that a hypothesis is wrong is just as solid a result as definitive proof the hypothesis is right.

      Disproving a hypothesis does not offer “definitive proof” equivalent to proving one correct, as it eliminates only one scenario among potentially infinite others, whereas proving a hypothesis correct directly builds upon our understanding of the world. The value of disproved hypotheses primarily lies in guiding future research rather than providing solid, actionable results.

      • Lucien [hy/hym, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        Certainly, I don’t disagree with that at all. And that’s likely part of the reason so few people publish failures, because there’s no “reward”. All I was saying is there’s still value there.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Often, it’s about not proving your idea wrong, but about proving wrong the idea that your idea is wrong.

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    8 months ago

    This is why my field (reinforcement learning) is unfortunately not science.

    (Can’t really publish “hey I tried this algorithm and it didn’t work”)

      • jeffhykin@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        I guess I should’ve clarified; in reforcement learning “I was wrong in numerous ways” almost always translates to “unpublishable, try to not be wrong next time”. Nobody cares if a reinforcement learning hypothesis didn’t work, its only worth publishing if it worked well.

        • overcast5348@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Gotcha.

          I thought that was the norm in all academia these days? Can a physicist (or anyone from another field) publish results that didn’t go as expected and save future scientists some time?

          • jeffhykin@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            I know a good bit of micro biology, psychology, and medical trial fields can. But thats about the limit of my “other fields” knowledge.