Asymmetrical Information

Read literally, people who drive fast _all_ the time do get more tickets. However, people who drive fast _most_ of the time tend to be more aware of their surroundings and hence slow down before bringing themselves to the attention of nearby Law Enforcement personnel and/or equipment. I suspect such a study on speeding would show that mean-average-speed is less correlated to speeding-tickets than intuition would suggest.

Well, if you read on in the article, it seems to be merely saying that successful toilet training seems to be closely correlated to when the child is first introduced to the concept. May seem obvious, and the article is badly worded, but in any scientific study you do have to test and/or control for other potential relationships.

For example, there's always the possibility that kinetic learners might adapt to toilet training immediately regardless of what (reasonable) age they were first introduced, whereas others might inherently require longer training times, such as auditory and visual learners who...uh...hmm. I think I've written myself into a corner there, and prefer to exit without completing the thought. But you get the idea.

Your wonder filled mockery should probably be directed at journalism rather than science.

Much of science can be made to sound overwhelmingly stupid by asking the question the scientist asked, but asking it backward, answer first. Journalism works by always giving you the answer before talking about the question.

When you get down further in the story it becomes plain that the question the scientist actually asked was, "Why is toilet training taking longer these days?" This leads to the question "What makes it take longer at all?"

There were three answers, not just one. Only one of them is intuitively "obvious". And if you don't identify them all you are highly unlikely to answer the intitial question.

Now I can hear your impatient humanistic foot tapping in the background, but science really does work that way. It is one place, unlike literature, religion, and politics, where it is absolutely fatal to assume you know the answer before you begin to ask the questions.

Ah, the irony.

Jane posts about being blinded with science when it is Dreck (or perhaps Dreck's roomie, who can recall?) who is seared in my memory alongside the melodic waxings of Thomas Dolby.

Time to reminisce a bit about the early 80s. A couple of years spent living just down the hall from Mindles "I hate shaving with a dull blade" Dreck.

There were papers to be written, mid-terms to be crammed for. But nothing of the sort was possible. For out of Mindles' dorm room came blasting, "Science!... Poetry in motion... Blinding me with science - Science!" for all the entryway to enjoy.

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as it's better then Google for this type of topic.

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