s-gen - Slashdot User

Comment Correlation implies failure to falsify a theory (Score 1) 190

by s-gen on Wednesday September 05, 2007 @04:46PM (#20485649) Attached to: OOXML Vote and the CPI Corruption Index

Someone had a causal theory that corruption was responsible for certain voting patterns. They invented a test that could perhaps falsify the theory. The test did not falsify the theory.

Is it proved? No. But the correlation (failure to falsify) makes it a reasonable thing to believe unless/until it goes down to a better theory or a better test.

Submission + - You rock? You die (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @12:01PM

coondoggie writes: "You sort of had a feeling this was true and many of you who participate in online death pools count on it, but now a study puts numbers to it: rock and pop superstars die young. In fact they are more than twice as likely as the rest of the population to die an early death — usually within a few years of becoming famous. The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health today published findings based on more than 1,050 North American and European musicians and singers who shot to fame between 1956 and 1999. How long the pop stars survived once they had achieved chart success and become famous was compared with the expected longevity of the general population, matched for age, sex, ethnicity and nationality, up to the end of 2005. In all, 100 stars died between 1956 and 2005. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/19027"

Submission + - Bad Science (badscience.net)

Submitted by

DocDJ

on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @02:54AM

DocDJ writes: "Ben Goldacre (who writes an excellent article in The Guardian called Bad Science, which regularly demonstrates how poor the mainstream media is at reporting science) points out the flaws in the recent reporting of research which purported to show the evolutionary basis of 'blue for boys, pink for girls'."

Submission + - Potentially habitable planet found

Submitted by

slpalmer

on Wednesday April 25, 2007 @05:03AM

slpalmer writes: "For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe.""

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