Editing 1999: Selection Effect
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
+ | {{incomplete|edited by Help I’m stuck in a scientific study Elaine Roberts - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
− | The title refers to the effect in scientific fields where | + | The title refers to the effect in scientific fields where the people who agree to work with a researcher can affect the outcome. For example if I said I wanted to do a study on an embarrassing condition, people who know they have it might be more apprehensive and thus not participate. This can skew the results to say that the condition is rarer than it is. This is called the {{w|selection bias}}, or more precisely, the {{w|self-selection bias}}. Ironically, to avoid any selection bias, researchers would have to force their ''randomly'' selected subjects to participate in their study, but yet the uneasiness shown by the mandatory subjects again skews the results. |
− | + | Ponytail says that people who agree to be in a study at their lab are less likely to attempt to escape. This makes sense, since if you agreed to the study, you know why you are there, while if you didn't, you may have been kidnapped. This implies that Ponytail has recently kidnapped people for a study, and that most of the people she kidnapped called the police, as one should do when being kidnapped{{Citation needed}}. The comic incorrectly shows Ponytail being allowed to present the results of this study at a conference; reputable scientific journals and conferences should not legitimize studies that clearly violate their ethical norms, such as by failing to obtain informed consent from human subjects before experimenting on them. It is not clear how many people who did agree to participate may have attempted to call the police for assistance regardless; compare the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment Stanford Prison Experiment]. This is similar to previous comics where obvious things are presented in obfuscated, scientific ways. | |
− | The | + | The title text says that people who didn't agree to go inside an MRI machine are more likely to escape the machine mid-scan. Again, this makes sense, because being put somewhere against your will makes you unsure what is going on, making you try to find a way out. |
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==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
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[[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]] | [[Category:Comics featuring Ponytail]] | ||
[[Category:Science]] | [[Category:Science]] | ||
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