Tag: research

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Left-handedness

Posted on by Jinavie

Phones, golf clubs, scissors, forks and knives, the order of writing… Almost everything in this world is made for the convenience of right-handed people. Because of this, there is a hypothesis that left-handed people have a relatively shorter life expectancy compared to right-handed people.

Dr. Diane F. Halpern of California State University conducted a research comparing the life expectancy of right-handed people versus left-handed people. The results were astounding; the mean life expectancy of right-handed people was 75, while left-handed people only lived 66 years on average. Dr. Halpern posited that this was due to left-handed people becoming stressed living in a right-handed world, shortening their life expectancy. Of course, there were debates about whether the results were reliable or not and there was heavy opposition from the left-handed community. But if the left-handed people are enraged about being discriminated against by society, this would stress them out and actually shorten their life, so it might not be best not to debate about the issue.

Left-handedness has historically been associated with evil. The word right also means “good”, while left-handedness is formally known as sinistrality, which shares its etymological origin with sinister. The word for right is associated with good things throughout the world, while left is associated with bad things. In Korea, 오른 (oreun, right) has the same pronunciation as 옳은 (orlheun, true)“. The Chinese character for left (左) is also used to mean “improper”. In medieval Europe, left-handed people were thought to be associated with the devil or witches and were often executed. Left-handed people have been unjustly hated throughout time and space.

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Rules

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1967, a group of scientists designed an experiment where five monkeys were put in one cage with a ladder in the middle and a banana suspended over it. When a monkey tried to climb the ladder to reach the banana, it was hosed down with ice cold water to discourage it. However, at the same time the four other monkeys were sprayed as well. This was repeated until the monkeys were conditioned not to climb the ladder as it meant being blasted by cold water. Interestingly, even when the reward was tempting enough for a monkey to brace the cold water and climb the ladder, the monkey was swiftly taken down by the other monkeys – fearing the cold water – and was punished by a beating. This further discouraged the monkeys from climbing the ladder even when the researchers stopped spraying the monkeys with water.

The researchers then substituted one of the original monkeys with a new monkey who had not been in the cage before. This new monkey immediately noticed the banana and started to climb the ladder. The other monkeys saw this and responded with rage, enforcing their unspoken “rule” of never climbing the ladder. The new monkey quickly learned that climbing the ladder was a bad thing.
The researchers substituted another original monkey for a new monkey and the same thing happened. They repeated this until all monkeys were replaced.

When they substituted the last monkey in (number 10), the cage was already filled with “new” monkeys who had never been hosed before, but nonetheless knew not to climb the ladder. When the monkey was punished for climbing the ladder, it gave an expression that seemed to question why he was being punished. The other monkeys did not know why; none of them had been punished with cold water and only knew that the other monkeys would beat him up. Even though none of them knew why the punishment was required, they dished it out regardless. The rule had been engrained into the mob, with each monkey following it without any logical reason.

Posted in Science & Nature

Newton’s Apple

Posted on by Jinavie

Common belief is that Newton discovered gravity after an apple dropped on his head. Although there is no historical evidence to support this myth, it has become a popular story. There are two common responses to this story: the first is “Wow, Newton was a smart cookie” and the second is “Pfft, I could have discovered gravity without an apple, it is such an easy thing.”

The latter group of people are idiots. Newton did not “discover” gravity. Human beings have known that objects fall to the ground since the dawn of time and have utilised it in ways ranging from sports to killing other people by crushing them with giant rocks. Even animals know of the concept as seen by eagles dropping turtles on rocks to crack the shell. In fact, if you could not figure that out, then you would really be an idiot.

The reason why Newton is famous is not because he found that apples fall from trees, it is because he observed the phenomenon, noting that it was always perpendicular to the ground, which in combination with the knowledge that the Earth is round suggests that objects tend to fall towards the centre of the Earth. Again, Newton’s brilliance was not that he simply observed an apple falling, it was that he pondered it and spent years researching it until he discovered the way gravity behaves. He devised formulas to estimate how gravity functions, even applying it to predict how the moon orbits around the Earth. Thanks to Newton, we are able to model the world around us and send rockets to the moon without launching our astronauts in to the depth of space with no hope of recovery. 

Interestingly, physicists still do not know what causes gravity. There are many theories, such as particles called gravitrons attracting two objects to each other. Although the mathematics of two objects attracting each other has been accurately calculated, it is unknown what causes it. Only after you discover the truth behind how gravity functions can you say that “I could have discovered gravity in my sleep” (actually, even then you probably spent decades just trying to grasp the concept).

Before you criticise, know what you are criticising. 


Posted in Science & Nature

Soul

Posted on by Jinavie

In 1907, a physician called Duncan MacDougall tried to scientifically prove the existence of the human soul. He weighed patients dying from tuberculosis at the time of death and studied the change in body mass. After observing the death of six patients, he noted that the body mass lightens at the time of death, which he attributed to the soul leaving the dead body. He published the official average mass of the soul as 21 grams.

Unfortunately, this experiment was complete nonsense. MacDougall failed to use the scientific method. The tiny sample size of six patients, the broad range of weight loss (21 was an arbitrary number he chose and was not even the proper mean mass) and the lack of control in the study environment are some of the major flaws of the experiment procedure. In fact, it is more likely the change in body mass was due to the many changes that occur post-mortem. For example, the lungs recoil and breathe out air, moisture escapes the body and as the sphincters relax, excrements are expelled.

Many people still believe the urban myth that the soul has an objective weight of 21 grams (possibly augmented by the movie 21 grams). Another interesting fact is that MacDougall also experimented on dogs (except instead of using dying dogs, he killed them himself). He found that dogs lose no weight when dying and thus claimed that dogs have no soul.

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(Source: http://ericana.deviantart.com/art/Soul-Meets-Body-80831167?q=boost%3Apopular%20soul%20%20body%20-eater&qo=5)