Scientific Method

The Scientific Method For Morons

1. Observe some phenomenon.

2. Guess how it works.

3. Look at others' work and fill in whatever gaps you can.

4. Formulate a hypothesis, with specific predictions that can be falsified.

5. Design experiments to test that hypothesis.

6. If your predictions are borne out by experiment, you get a cookie.

7. If your predictions are not borne out by experiment, shitcan or modify the hypothesis.

Notice there is no step that includes massaging the data to fit the hypothesis. Notice too that there is no step that works backwards from a conclusion.

The Scientific Method is the bedrock of Western Culture and success. When we tamper with it  we risk diving into an irrational culture in which homeopathy and copper wristbands and dousing and clever plaintiffs' attorneys are considered just as valid as scientifically proven concepts.

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

-- Richard P. Feynman

[Hat Tip and input: Jay Guevara]

http://ace.mu.nu/

Absurdisms*

Absurdisms

Certainly anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil.― Voltaire

1) 100 story buildings falling in 10 seconds because of an explosion on the 80th floor.

2) "I know with certainty where I was and who I was in the last 80 trillion years." - L. Ron Hubbard, Messiah or Madman

3) I'm an XX trapped in an XY body. Or vice versa.

4) Water doesn't stick to a spinning ball.

5) Dinosaurs

6) The apple fell on Newton's head, inspiring his theory of gravity. No one asked how the apple got up there.

7) Pictures from Mars

8) How does a rocket propulsion system work in the vacuum of "space"?

9) "Pinpoint" missile attacks

10) Good government