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In science, it's not enough to think something is so. Researchers must show that what we believe to be true is in fact true, proven through statistically significant and reproducible results. Questioning assumptions is, after all, what science is about.
Nonetheless, some studies really take the cake in the "duh" department, discovering things that were already obvious. Here are findings from this year that should come as little surprise.
1. Unsafe sex is more likely after drinking
Drinking too much alcohol can impair decision-making. And a study out this year drove this point home: Canadian researchers, reporting results that will be published in January in the journal Addiction, said they ran 12 studies looking at the link between blood alcohol and the likelihood of agreeing to use a condom during sexual intercourse. The more alcohol in a person's system (yes, the drunker they were), the more likely they were to throw caution to the wind and ditch safe sex. Specifically, for every 0.1-milligram-per-milliliter increase in study participants' blood alcohol levels, there was a 5 percent increased likelihood of having unprotected sex.
2. Men appear confident by suppressing fear, pain and empathy
When mixed martial arts fighters need to show off masculine strength and confidence, they suppress fear, empathy, pain and shame.
Yeah, not too shocking: that tamping down those emotions might make someone seem more formidable. But the research, published in December in the journal Social Psychology Quarterly, was aimed at understanding how men manage their emotions and expectations of manhood.
"Managing emotional manhood, whether it occurs in a locker room or board room, at home or the Oval Office, likely plays a key role in maintaining unequal social arrangements," study author Christian Vaccaro of Indiana University of Pennsylvania said in a statement.
3. Smoking pot and driving isn't safe
Who knew, getting behind the wheel while high could be trouble? According to a study published in October in the journal Epidemiologic Reviews, marijuana use increases the risk of car crashes. People who took to the road within three hours of smoking pot, as well as those who tested positive for the drug, were more than twice as likely as other drivers to be involved in a car crash. And that risk increased for those who smoked more frequently and those showing a higher level of the drug in their urine.
4. Pigs love mud
Turns out pigs aren't just putting on a show when they haul butt around their muddy quarters, diving into the muck. They actually like it. While mud baths keep pigs cool, a review of research reported in 2011 found wallowing may also be a swine sign of well-being. While the review found the strongest reason noted in the past studies for wallowing was to keep cool, the pigs kept it up through winter months.
5. Fashion magazines glorify youth
Surprise, surprise: Fashion mags portray women over 40 sparingly, if at all. Young celebrities and models dominate the pages of these publications, even ones targeted at older age groups. For example, researchers reported in April in the Journal of Aging Studies, that 22 percent of the reader base of Essence is older than 50, but only 9 percent of the women in its pages were even older than 40. Vogue featured only one woman over 40 on its covers in 2010: Halle Berry (then 43).
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27 Comments
Add CommentYou missed the article that said, The first humans out of Africa engaged in interbreeding for tens of thousands of years. That article was just plain stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInterbreeding for thousands of years? That might explain the sorry state of our species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKnowing that something is true and understanding WHY it is true are two very different things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjust, please tell me that government funds were NOT involved in these studies!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if I could get a grant to determine how much grant money was spent on these findings, and (with respects to profchuck) . . . . WHY?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with ProfChuck's statement that knowing that something is true is different than knowing why it is true. We all would agree that people get sick. However, millions of dollars are correctly spent annually trying to discover why people get sick and to prevent it. Alternatively, common knowledge is often proved incorrect. So, before scientists can adequately understand how to prevent a problem, they must first gather precise data on its nature and scope. For example, knowing that cars emit pollution is just the beginning. The types, amounts, ratios of emissions need to be quantified before solutions can be devised and implemented. As a result of digging deeper than just "cars make smog"... science has developed several successful remedies for otherwise "dirty" internal combustion technologies, such as catalytic converters, hybrid cars, and unleaded fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoesn't anyone wish to comment about a specific point?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTake #6 for example. Does someone want to lend me their generous partner?
@the Gaul: I would, but mine is into portion control. She's always giving me a ration.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReal science needs to be performed to validate "common sense". There are a lot of beliefs that make the rounds, even in scientific communities. "Experts" and consultants abound and are paid handsomely for pushing one idea or another, and the public, being incompetent in most scientific areas, they are easily fooled. The CSI effect. Common knowledge can be wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the law, much "expert" testimony is biased, as most experts are paid by the prosecution or defense and bias their "expert" opinion. Arson experts, accident reconstruction, blood spatter evidence may have little science to back it up. Recent studies have shown that the "common knowledge" that spent bullets from different manufacturers would be distinguishable, but are in fact not, has contributed to suspect convictions. Much scientific evidence requires assumptions. For example, facial reconstruction requires knowledge of a person's ethnicity/race because such information is not present in the skeletal remains. Then, further, the data on facial feature differences based on race is based on very old data that has not been updated in many generations.
Finger print and genetic testing is assumed to be accurate, but neither are. Fingerprints have been known to match multiple persons. Recently, in the UK, a police officer was fired because they found genetic evidence that she had compromised a crime scene, and lied about it, only to discover that her genetic match also matched another person, who actually was at the crime scene. (That is, finger printing and genetic testing do not perform whole matches, instead match on a few sample points).
SA. If this article is an example of your future articles, you should just close it down. Your becoming an alternate site for Fox News wannabes.
The first study on alcohol and safe sex should have been reviewed scientifically. First, the study is not scientific; it is a meta analysis, looking at the conclusions of 12 studies. Each of the twelve studies merely asked the control and experimental subjects if they believe they would have had unprotected sex in their current (non-)inebriated state. Not very useful, if you ask me.
@Larry W: Of course you're correct, within your terms. Nonetheless, there is another scientific process, known as "triage," which is also useful in determining where to put one's energies. What is going to provide real benefit to future recipients, as opposed to satisfying the merely curious. For instance, such a triage might give high priority (and financing) to the heretofore low-glamour research on the causes and cure for Alzheimer's, despite my curiosity as to why scientists have NO sense of humor when confronted with articles like the above.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, except WHY something is true is often so transparent that it defies description.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlzheimer's example might be a great place to discuss how your triage example illustrates a complete waste of money. The only reason Alzheimer's is being emphasized is that one very old man was diagnosed with the disease in the 1990's -- Ronald Reagan. Putting massive amounts of research and money into the diseases of old people is immoral when the productive life of the young is being short changed. And Alzheimer's itself is a relatively rare cause of dementia when compared to small strokes that slowly eat away at mental capacity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd I say the above from the standpoint of a retiree. If I live as long as my father, I've got another ten years, if my mother, two years. I'm pretty well done with being productive, but my daughter has another 40 years at least. Resources need to be available to her, and they are not, being wasted on us old people who have caused more harm and damage than can be corrected in tens of generations.
Get your political head out your butt. Fox News is the most egregious of the news organizations by far, given that blatant lying, rather than misinformed, is their calling card.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut if you like, I can put Oprah up as another example. Her support for Jenny McCarthy and Andrew Wakefield on vaccines causing autism could not have done more damage.
The anti-vaccine movement is primarily a "liberal" cause, while anti-climate change is primarily a "conservative" cause, as is anti-evolution and anti-science, though since 50% of the "liberal" teachers in k-12 also are anti-evolution, I can safely say that stupidity is not bounded by politics positions.
Cannabis increases driving hazard like aspirin does though; to be fair though, having too much aspirin will have you driven to the morgue, unlike cannabis. ---something else to consider about that link: the sorts of people who use the most pot are younger (worse drivers) & probably engage in more risky behavior anyway, so the pot is probably circumstantial & as much to blame as caffeine in many cases. Cannabis & driving is like aspirin & driving or coffee & driving, in terms of disability. It is not as dangerous as you probably think; driving while young & restless is another story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoy SCIAM has slipped to number 11th stupidest thing in 2011. But once you pass the event horizon there is no going back. Dad next year I'll take the subscription to Penthouse I don't like this magazine anymore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah ! Many politicians outlive their country's mates. It's probably an opportunity God gives them to notice that life has and end, that finally, they have done nothing they can be proud of or just think being authors of, and for having enough time to notice their mistakes and sins, regret them, and beg pardon for them. Those who got no punishment during life probably will fare worse in the final day.Salut +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBased on...?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with the earlier statement that knowing what happens is not the same a knowing why. The "why" of some of these issues is vitally important.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"online is the place to go for mindless entertainment"
Strange thing to state in an online article.
1. Too drunk to put it on? To drunk to get it up. I wish I were in that study. Get me drunk and sex me up. Oh, what we sacrifice for science!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this2. Well trained martial artists don't feel pain. They must have studies martial sports.
Martial sports wears padding. Martial arts does not.
3. So why is pot on the bottom of MADD's risky behavior list?
4. There you go ladies, mud baths will make you pretty as a pig. What about the same reason other animals wallow. To keep the bugs off of them.
5. Yep, duh! I'm 63, I don't want a centerfold of my wife, do you?
Frankenfoods. Who's studying that? I disagree with you. Folk knowledge is far more valuable then some might think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is funded, and therefore it is agenda based. This makes abusing science too easy. So, people turn away from it. It can't be trusted.
Pure science rarely makes it into the public domain. The Earth stinks, we blame science because it takes no responsibility for it's creations. Einstein heavily grieved his atomic invention. That comes from a long list of scientists saying, dammit.
No science is a perfect science.
I get so sick of watching science specials with some jackass grinning bubblehead saying "gee, I hope the military doesn't get hold of this". All the while Lucifer shines through they're starry eyes.
"Intelligence will trick you". - Thoth
Thank you LarryW. I'm also retired and I'll be damned and buried before I give my son's inheritance to a doctor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy older brother is dying of chemo and radiation poisoning. Now, some might say he would have died of the cancer. Sure, but he would have died without the expensive torture.
Oh, but he can live a year or two longer! Yeah, if that's living. He is absolutely alone because no one can stand to hear him eat without his epiglottis. Radiation burned it out of his throat. It burned his spine so bad he had to have screws put in his upper spine so he could hold his head up. The nut at the end of the screws fell off and he had to be opened up again. If I ever find him with a bullet in head, I will understand. I just hope he can sue them before he dies.
VA hospital. Old soldiers don't really fade away. We get ****ed to death.
Despite the ad "ever kiss begins with Kay," I suspect most kisses begin with Bud Lite.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes. Common sense is what tells you the Earth is flat - and that the sun revolves around it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, we can presume you have no common sense?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee? Not *all* GRANT money is wasted.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems that we, you and I, tend to agree!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe, extending your logic, we could vaccinate the Greenies and then live in Greenpeace for awhile?
Probably not.
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