The reason these small sample sizes are used is that with decent sample sizes you would not find all those effects that allow you to publish a lot. That is the whole problem.

The method does, but most scientists do not, as they routinely oversell their results and challenges could actually endanger their funding or reputation. If we were to select professors and researchers actually on scientific merit, and not on "best show provided", things may be different. But today doing good science is a sure way to not be able to work as a researcher beyond a PhD, and even finishing that PhD can be tricky, as you will not publish enough. The system is completely borked because the wrong people have been promoted for a long, long time.

We are well advanced on that path....

Not only measurements. There is a lot of defective CS research being published in all CS fields. "Good" conferences have the additional disadvantage that the trash submitted there is harder to spot, as it is well written trash.

Very much this. The assumption is that papers only cite good research, but is something is really off, I have personally cited papers saying that the people that wrote it have no clue (with evidence of course). I have very rarely seen it done by other authors though, but that may be due to my field (CS).

The other thing is that if you do good research and explore interesting side-aspects, you are never getting a permanent academic position. Those go exclusively to people with a lot of publications (which is a bad sign in itself...). The system promotes bad scientists into positions where they can do and supervise more bad science. It is really a complete mess. And I do understand why so many industrial CS people have an utter disdain for published research, most of it is just so terribly bad it is staggering. To make matters worse, much of these terribly bad publications look good on the surface as that is required to get them accepted. But I have found outright fraudulent publications at Tier-1 conferences, misleading ones and ones that claimed findings without any proof whatsoever. I also know several people that should have their PhD removed, because they did not have the results they claimed they had. They were just clever enough to publish in a venue where the reviewers were impressed by the names on the paper or the writing, but failed to spot the often subtle but critical errors. (No, anonymous review does not help. People that want to benefit from the names of their advisors just publish a technical report that is the same as the paper and make sure Google finds it. Many reviewers even at first-rate conferences are too lazy to do a real review and instead first check whether they can identify the authors and just decides on the names if they are successful.)

Great, that's not what we're discussing.

Just about everyone? No one likes the complexity of the tax system, but very very few people support the flat tax when they understand the ramifications.

What ramifications? Are you assuming that the only possible flat-tax that could pass is a vanilla regressive tax with no prebate? FairTax (which I believe is the most widely supported flat tax proposal) accounts for the regressive nature of flat taxes in its model.

Paul's belief in creationism I believe is also tied to his views on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion. If he is president when a bill comes across his desk to legislate things like that, I don't think he's going to represent my views.

Except that he already proved otherwise. In votes. For 30 years. He's going to leave it to the states, where it belongs, his own opinions on the issue be damned. Doesn't it mean anything to you that despite being staunchly pro-life and likely anti-same-sex-marriage as well, he won't actually support federal legislation to try to force those beliefs upon voters? That means a great deal to me and makes me respect him as a politician. I'm tired of people that try to legislate based on their view of what the world should be rather than based on what our system of governance is + what their constituents want.

Without taking sides on the actual issue, are you telling us you can't imagine experiments that don't require the whole planet, or that couldn't be repeated? Really?

D.C. has speed cameras...no cop required to issue you a ticket.

It has nothing to do with their salaries, and everything to do with where most of them came from...ex-military cops. The vast majority of military police did not choose that profession, it was given to them because they didn't qualify (look up the ASVAB exam) for other work. That means that the majority of them are not exactly bright bulbs. What do these people do when they're discharged?...become civilian police.

Now, this is not to say there aren't good cops. But, there are a lot more bad ones.

I may have missed it, but I don't see anywhere in the article that it states the vehicle was illegally operated or parked. If my license is revoked, I'm very likely to have my wife or daughter drive me around...was there some knowledge that he actually drove it?

Your "logic" is the same used to make us take our shoes off and limit us to 3oz of fluids at the airport. Neither of those are rational, nor is yours. Instead, you chose to live in a fear bubble. You, and your 100 nearest friends, family and neighbors, are more likely to die driving to work then ever be near any kind of terrorist action.

"She added that the vehicle owner was located and her statement identified him as Israel Shimeles of the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia."

Maybe I'm stereotyping, but my guess would be non-black.

Aehm, you did it to yourself?