BIOLOGY 1114H Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Uniformitarianism, Impact Factor, Gradualism
25 Aug 2016
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Myers et. all (2011) published study as a joke that stated that smoking can help runners perform better. Smoking increases lung volume, hemoglobin levels, and weight loss; all of which improve running. Obviously smoking does not improve running but myers cherry-picked data to show support for his hypothesis. In the correct context, all the symptoms that help with running are actually just signs of respiratory stress. Consider: alternative hypotheses, who funded the study, and the context of observations. Causation means there is correlation but correlation doesn"t imply causation. Perspectives to consider when reading about conflicts/ controversies. Conflict between scientific and non-scientific (faith based or political) beliefs. Considered authoritative repository of information which is archived in some form. Scientific journal articles are always cited as paper version, should be from an accredited journal with a good impact factor. Impact factor is the average number of citations of an article in the previous two years.
