BLA1142

Barrett's Laws Assignment Page

1. Human sciences are "fuzzy" sciences, but they are still sciences.
Most people dismiss human sciences as actual sciences because they cannot necessarily be tested due to ethics, but they are still able to be observed and have data collected and recovered from the observed phenomenons to try to form some kind of conclusion and possible hypothesis.

2. Science requires data.
Most human scientists do not provide actual data to back up their claims; instead they just use their own personal beliefs and biases to try to prove their points which most people fall for because they appeal to your emotions, not the actual evidence.

3. Science runs on careful criticism.
As with everything, people are always going to try to tear you down and find any problem with your findings and conclusions when they don't agree. But this is okay and should be encouraged. Let them find something wrong with your work so you can correct it and make it that much better, eventually perfecting your theory and making a brand new discovery. Every time they point out a flaw, they help get you that much closer to finding out the actual truth.

4. Fight fire with fire, and data with data.
People cannot just pick fights with other people just for the fun of it. You cannot speculate obvious facts and try to make up something that is not right when it doesn't even exist. Accept the facts and pick your battles.

5. There's power in precise terms.
Having a conversation with a scientist is very different than having a conversation with a non-scientist. Scientist are used to choosing their words extremely carefully. They knew that each word has a specific meaning and a miscommunication of any sorts among them could result in numerous problems and misunderstandings. Scientists chose their words very carefully when they are trying to successfully prove a point, and you should too.

6. Correlation is not causation.
Just because two things coincidentally increase or decrease or vice versa around the same time of each other does not mean either one of them is causing the results of the other one. There are usually many other indirect factors that could be contributing to these changes as well. All possibilities need to be considered when making any judgement calls about discovered coincidences.

7. More of something good isn't always better.
I believe this is the most overused law because the philosophy sounds the most legitimate. I believe our mentality is if it works steadily in small dosages than it will work even faster if we increase the in or outtake. This has been seen a lot when it comes to cooking, thinking that if the temperature is higher it will cook faster. I also experienced this first hand the other day when I was at the dermatologist and I told her that the medicine she had given me made my face sting and feel like it was on fire. She said that I was probably using too much of it at one time. It reminded me exactly of this. Same with the vegetarians that believe meat is bad for you and since vegetables are good, eating more vegetables and no meat is somehow healthy is not correct at all. Everything is good in moderation and more people need to understand that.

8. Beware the plausible, __especially__ if it works.
It is extremely hard to dismiss solutions when they seem to always work. However, this does not mean that they are the only solution or a solution without any flaws or unwanted side effects or outcomes. The perfect example of this is the pickle fallacy discussed on the wiki. Even though it cured the woman of her headaches does not mean that that's the case for everybody in that same situation. Pickles cannot magically cure headaches, but in her specific situation it got rid of some of the side effects.

9. Where there's smoke, there's smoke.
Just because something is brought to your attention doesn't mean there is so deeper meaning to it. As always it's good to investigate things but don't try to make a mountain out of a mole hole. Things happen, but they are cause for concern, not panic. When my grades started slipping in high school my mom thought I had developed some sort of mental disorder, so she had me try all these different things only to find I was negative for all of them. Sometimes kids lose their way but it doesn't mean they'll be lost forever. I'm back on track now and don't plan on getting side-tracked again.

10. Lack of evidence doesn't mean it's false.
Not everything has had the ability to be tested and have a formal conclusion resulted from it because most things dealing with the soft sciences are not testable due to ethics again. This doesn't mean the hypothesis is not true, it just means it hasn't had the opportunity to be proven or disproven. Getting new ideas and possible explanations out there for other people to question and judge and criticize is the only way for the science community, and our knowledge of how everything works, to help grow and make new discoveries. If somebody puts it out there, people will try everything to see if there's any possible, provable truth behind it.