Science

Whenever you read that a double-blind study has proven, beyond any
shadow of a doubt, that X is more efficient than Y, your very first
question should be "What do they mean by 'efficient'?".

Sometime during the second half of the twentieth century, there was a
tremendous flap because someone had proven that slogging was more
efficent than spinning.

Since everyone had personal experience that flatly contradicted this
result, there was a *lot* of discussion!

Eventually someone noticed that the researchers had defined
"efficient" as "I don't burn much fuel."

The riders defined "efficient" as "I can go a long way before I get
too tired to continue, I don't hurt myself doing it, and it doesn't
take a long time to rest up for another round." If you have to pig
out on sweets, that's a feature.

So the study had practical meaning only among people too poor to have
access to the results.

But according to another study, they've already figured it out by
themselves.


--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/