Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Wine is Back on the Menu, Boys

Rey had a surprise for me this evening when I got in the car after waiting for him for two hours after work while he attended his statistics class. He had a tasty little morsel waiting for me and he could hardly control himself when I got in the car. It wasn’t chocolate, which I’m not particularly fond of anyway. It was this tasty little piece of advice that his professor had imparted upon him:

“Never give up your vices based on the results of a study.”

That came from the mouth of a woman with a Ph.D. in Psychology who specializes in statistical analysis, which means it might as well have come from the mouth of God.

According to her, studies are unreliable because they’re frequently conducted by professors seeking tenure at their colleges. To receive tenure, the professors must have published studies. The catch is this: schools frown on replication—which is the backbone of any reliable study—hence the bogus results, i.e. wine will strangle you in your sleep.

So, for those of you keeping score at home, Take 492 is officially over. Cheers!

2 comments:

Sean said...

Wait a minute. So, alcohol no longer causes people to "die a horrible and painful death caused by prolonged and excessive alcohol consumption"?

Leila V. said...

Exactly. I knew you were a quick one, Sean.