Question

The Research Process

Imagine you are in a fast-food restaurant where a lady tells you that she had heard there was a gene for liking or hating the taste of cilantro. You looked on the Internet to investigate this statement, and although you found similar comments on reputable websites, you are yet to find any scientific studies supporting this claim.

Should you be skeptical about the scientific merit of this claim after browsing the Internet? Why?

Do you think there are times when scientifically-sound research is not accepted for publication? Why?

What should you do to continue this investigation?

Using the South University Online Library, find two peer-reviewed articles discussing genetics and food preference. Using the skills you learned from this week's lectures, summarize each of them.

What is a primary source for any research study? Why is it important to read the primary source?

Why do most students settle for reading secondhand or thirdhand accounts of research studies instead of reading the primary source?

When might you have to depend on a secondary source of information? Are thirdhand accounts of research studies reliable? Why?

Answer 1

Should you be skeptical about the scientific merit of this claim after browsing the Internet? Why?

• In a 1997 episode of The Simpsons entitled “The Springfield Files”—a parody of X-Files in which Homer has an alien encounter in the woods (after imbibing 10 bottles of Red Tick Beer)—Leonard Nimoy voices the intro as he once did for his post-Spock run on the television mystery series In Search of...:
• “The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true, I mean false. It’s all lies. But they’re entertaining lies, and in the end isn’t that the real truth? The answer is no.”
• No cubed. The postmodernist belief in the relativism of truth, coupled to the clicker culture of mass media where attention spans are measured in New York minutes, leaves us with a bewildering array of truth claims packaged in infotainment units.
• It must be true—I saw it on television, at the movies, on the Internet. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, That’s Incredible, The Sixth Sense, Poltergeist, Loose Change, Zeitgeist the Movie. Mysteries, magic, myths and monsters. The occult and the supernatural. Conspiracies and cabals. The face on Mars and aliens on Earth. Bigfoot and Loch Ness. ESP and PSI. UFOs and ETIs. JFK, RFK and MLK—alphabet conspiracies.
• Altered states and hypnotic regression. Remote viewing and astroprojection. Ouija boards and Tarot cards. Astrology and palm reading. Acupuncture and chiropractic. Repressed memories and false memories. Talking to the dead and listening to your inner child. Such claims are an obfuscating amalgam of theory and conjecture, reality and fantasy, nonfiction and science fiction. Cue dramatic music. Darken the backdrop. Cast a shaft of light across the host’s face. The truth is out there. I want to believe.
• What I want to believe based on emotions and what I should believe based on evidence does not always coincide. And after 99 monthly columns of exploring such topics (this is Opus 100), I conclude that I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know. I believe that the truth is out there. But how can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.