== Study says many studies suck = By Mark Morford

[madokie]

Research shows we are far too drunk on stupid studies that tell us what research shows

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/02/01/notes020108.DTL&nl=fix

Here is this lovely questionnaire. It is part of a big national study designed by a major medical clinic/university/government body and it is therefore presumably quite important and serious and high-minded and its conclusions might very well go a long way toward telling us a great deal more about who we are as a people, as a species, as a weird semi-intelligent flesh-eating creature of this vast and impenetrable galaxy. Please respond accordingly.

Question No. 1 (please be as specific as possible): Exactly how much of an idiot are you? More to the point: How arrogant and ignorant and out of touch with your body, your heart, your mind, your divine sense of self do you feel you are on a day to day basis? Are you, in short, a moron? How much of a moron? Too much of a moron to actually understand this paragraph? Please check the little box on the right. No, the other right. Thank you.

>From what I have gleaned from glancing through a whole slew of recent studies, these are, apparently, the questions we most need answered. These are the questions that plague us and torment us and, oh my God, if we only had the answers to these questions and the many, many other urgent queries like them, such as: Is sunlight necessary? Is breathing compulsory? Is having a dog around sort of nice? If you eat less crap, will you feel better? Sleep: Who cares? Should humans move? God: WTF? — we might just figure out how to live long enough to, you know, accidentally stab ourselves in the eye with a fork and bleed to death.

Which is perhaps an overly snarky way of saying: Many of these studies are getting dangerously inane. And insulting. And actually harmful. Because if you believe many of these deceptive factoids that fill our newspapers and magazines and universities, if you take them as they're meant to be taken, as helpful guidelines for behavior or even as some sort of serious demarcation of human understanding, well, we are doomed indeed. ...

[Snarkturian Clone]

1. Finally...

I keep telling people on here that you can find a study to prove any crazy thang. Duers are always posting these goofy studies and living by them.

[melody]

4. So common sense about "crazy thangs" is better than "goofy studies"? n/t

[ixion]

2. hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars are wasted on worthless studies

that are not only inaccurate and wasteful, but worthless to boot. And yet our so-called leaders gleefully funnel millions toward them every year.

Wouldn't it be better to do something constructive with that money? Oh yeah, I forgot. The only thing our government does well is destruction. Destruction of nations and lives and the social fabric that binds us. It's all they know. :grr:

[melody]

3. In other words, a study about other studies is somehow more reliable than the original studies?

Studies are merely evidence ... proof is in the eye of the beholder.

Studies that have medical evidence behind them aren't merely based on anecdotal evidence. Granted, all evidence is
collected and represented by human observers, but not all studies are created equal. Even ones we want to disagree
with may have some truth behind them.

[flashl]

5. Discerning the societal benefit of higher education in America is a burning question

It seems 'we' are comfortable with the use of our brightest minds as tools to disenfranchise and promote fascism.

I know there are bright and caring people in America, somedays, it just appear that there are not enough.