Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site grkermit.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!larry From: larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: never believe what you read in the popular press about science Message-ID: <512@grkermit.UUCP> Date: Fri, 22-Jul-83 09:47:29 EDT Article-I.D.: grkermit.512 Posted: Fri Jul 22 09:47:29 1983 Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jul-83 22:01:22 EDT References: <499@grkermit.UUCP>, <287@cbscd5.UUCP> <1282@fortune.UUCP> Organization: GenRad Inc., Concord, MA Lines: 14 The "water is an intoxicant" experiment violates the scientific method because it did not use a control group. That is, you have to have a group which is identical to the test groups in all aspects except for the characteristic you are testing. Thus, in order for the "intoxicant" experiment to be valid, there would have to have been a day on which I drank vodka and no water, or gin and no water. If I didn't get drunk on those days, then I could say that water had an effect. -- Larry Kolodney #13 (I try harder) (USENET) decvax!genrad!grkermit!larry allegra!linus!genrad!grkermit!larry (ARPA) rms.g.lkk@mit-ai