Random Thoughts

-Anyone who follows my blog and knows of my skepticism of what today passes for ‘science’, might find this interesting:

Most published scientific research papers are wrong, according to a new analysis. Assuming that the new paper is itself correct, problems with experimental and statistical methods mean that there is less than a 50% chance that the results of any randomly chosen scientific paper are true.John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, says that small sample sizes, poor study design, researcher bias, and selective reporting and other problems combine to make most research findings false. But even large, well-designed studies are not always right, meaning that scientists and the public have to be wary of reported findings...
...Traditionally a study is said to be "statistically significant" if the odds are only 1 in 20 that the result could be pure chance. But in a complicated field where there are many potential hypotheses to sift through - such as whether a particular gene influences a particular disease - it is easy to reach false conclusions using this standard. If you test 20 false hypotheses, one of them is likely to show up as true, on average.
Odds get even worse for studies that are too small, studies that find small effects (for example, a drug that works for only 10% of patients), or studies where the protocol and endpoints are poorly defined, allowing researchers to massage their conclusions after the fact.
Surprisingly, Ioannidis says another predictor of false findings is if a field is "hot", with many teams feeling pressure to beat the others to statistically significant findings.

-Ok, it’s just a matter of time, so let’s just get it over with. George Bush has somehow caused hurricane Katrina. If any reader here can give a logical reason as to how he’s has perpetrated this great evil, I would love to hear it. Leave your theories in the comment section of this post. C’mon Lefties, I know you think it’s true...let’s hear how.

-Here is a free lecture on economics to all(by all I mean 1 or more probably none) my Hawaiian readers...
A company called Widgets R Us makes and sells widgets. Each widget is sold for $10 a piece.
Widgets R Us sells its widgets to the city governments of Chicago and Honolulu. Widgets are in high demand from both cites.
Everything is going along fine until the City of Honolulu decides it will no longer pay $10 per widget and passes an ordinance stating it will pay only $5 per widget.
What happens next?
Well, of course, Widgets R Us then decides it can make much more profit selling all or at least most of its widgets to the City of Chicago.
The City of Honolulu now has a problem. A widget shortage. The people of Honolulu are not happy, as they now must wait in long lines for their widgets. They revolt, killing all the alderman and the mayor. They repeal the widget ordinance and once again pay fair market value for their beloved widgets.

-Here's one for the ladies:

...a study claims that the cleverest people are much more likely to be men than women.
Men are more intelligent than women by about five IQ points on average, making them better suited for “tasks of high complexity”, according to the authors of a paper due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology.

Genetic differences in intelligence between the sexes helped to explain why many more men than women won Nobel Prizes or became chess grandmasters, the study by Paul Irwing and Professor Richard Lynn concluded.

They showed that men outnumbered women in increasing numbers as intelligence levels rise. There were twice as many with IQ scores of 125, a level typical for people with first-class degrees.

When scores rose to 155, a level associated with genius, there were 5.5 men for every woman.

Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, said that he was uncomfortable with the findings. But he added that the evidence was clear despite the insistence of many academics that there were “no meaningful sex differences” in levels of intelligence.

But don't fret ladies, it is just a scientific study.