Reply #60: "Science" by epidemiologists, not criminologists.. [View All]

[X_Digger]

.. using epidemiological methodology to study a social problem, where the 'confounding factors are accounted for' by correlating your subjects with non-matching controls..

Applying scientific methodology to a false premise doesn't make good science.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=44

You could measure how much money the Tooth Fairy leaves under the pillow, whether she leaves more cash for the first or last tooth, whether the payoff is greater if you leave the tooth in a plastic baggie versus wrapped in Kleenex. You can get all kinds of good data that is reproducible and statistically significant. Yes, you have learned something. But you haven’t learned what you think you’ve learned, because you haven’t bothered to establish whether the Tooth Fairy really exists.