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permaculture - Re: permaculture digest: December 02, 2000

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Subject: permaculture

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  • From: Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: permaculture digest: December 02, 2000
  • Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2000 11:42:36 -0800


on 12/3/00 8:06 AM, MARSHALL CHROSTOWSKI at mcfarm@silcom.com wrote:

> No Toby the test just proved that 2 kittens died, cause(s) unknown.

Sigh. No, it shows more than that (I guess Marshall's got it in for me). If
the experiment had been done without controls, Marshall would be correct; we
would not be able to draw any conclusions about why the kittens died (I'm
not sure where he got the "2 kittens"; I didn't give a number, but there
were enough to make the experiment statistically significant).

But, as I described, there were controls. Other kittens were given different
food, and unless the investigators were complete morons, I assume they held
other variables constant (if they hadn't, the paper wouldn't have been
publishable). These controls allow us conclude that it was, with statistical
certainty, the food or something related to the food that killed the cats.
If we cannot conclude that from this experiment, then we can't conclude
anything from any scientific experiment. Controls allow us to draw
conclusions; they are essential to experimental design, and these were
proper controls. I think I can judge that; I designed a tiresomely large
number of experiments that satisfied the editors of journals like 'Nature'
and 'Science.'

I don't have any URLs about microwaves. I'm leaving in 10 minutes to teach a
2-week design course, but will hunt up the kitten/microwave paper on my day
off; it's in my wife's files, and she's gone. There has been a lot of
research done on home microwaves; a web search, instead of assertions, will
confirm this, and if no one beats me to it by Friday, I'll do one.

Marshall, if you want to continue this increasingly personal ego battle,
take it off list and just insult me directly; you're wasting people's time
and your anger is making you make stupid assertions like the one above. I
deliberately avoided answering your last unpleasant post directed at Sal and
me, hoping you'd cool down. This is looking less like a discussion of ideas
and more like insecure men shouting "I am TOO smarter than you!" and I'd
rather not participate in it. I'll be gone for a week and won't be posting.
Maybe you'll regain your (generally above-average) senses by then.

Toby







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