Something Thoughtful

  Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.

                                                   STUDIES SAY THAT…

Recently, a woman of my ken rejoiced in showing me the results of “studies” which said that boys grew up to be more balanced, more civil and more mature as human beings if they had at least one sister. This greatly amused me, in part because the woman in question herself has sons but no daughters. I also thought with amusement of cases where boys with sisters developed into anything other than civil. Branwell Bronte had three talented scribbling sisters, but that didn’t stop him from becoming a drunken, self-destructive sot.

There is the (probably distant) possibility that the “studies” in question had some merit. Maybe it’s true that boys brought up with sisters get attuned to the opposite sex and learn how to behave themselves in ways they wouldn’t know if they mixed only with the fellers… but most likely that would be true only in some cultures and in some social classes. There are cultures in which young women are regarded by their brothers as slaveys and irritants.

More than anything, though, I was annoyed by that vague and ambiguous term “studies”. Have you not heard it often in advertisements on television, where we are told that “studies” (or sometimes “research”) shows that “our” toothpaste is better than the rest? “Studies prove that Dizzo-Whizzo toothpaste removes all plaque, makes teeth brighter and whiter, heals cavities and brings a true smile on your face!!!”

At which point sentient viewers (if they have not muted the ads, as I usually do) might ask some obvious questions.

What “studies”?

Who sponsored and paid for the research, if indeed there really was any research?

Was the research commissioned by a subsidiary of the toothpaste company, with a foregone outcome expected?

Was the research disinterested? (i.e. impartial).

If scientific matters were involved, was there any double-blind testing?

Who carried out the survey that was needed to verify the conclusion?

How professionally trained were they?

How big was the data base that led to the declared outcome?

If sociological matters were concerned,  how many people were interviewed or observed by those who gathered the data? (In sociological matters, the bigger the database, the more accurate the conclusion is likely to be. Last week I polled people and discovered that the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of green cheese. My interviewees were five inmates of a psychiatric hospital.)

What sort of questions were asked of people? Were the questions loaded in any way?

In the case of making comparisons between the sexes, was an equal number of each sex examined or were the interviewees or participants loaded towards one sex or the other?

            And so on.

            The fact is that referring to “studies” as conclusive, without any detailed verification of those studies, is to refer to nothing of value at all. “Studies” often means something as loose as the polling carried out by newspapers and other news services when they want to score a point.

            Of course there are real “studies” that have produced real, verifiable conclusions. But even in the academic sphere, “studies” is often paired with words that imply ideology rather than impartial and empirically provable conclusions.

            Conclusion? Don’t take on faith what is presented to you only as “studies”.