I never really liked English class when I was in High School. As a Science/Art geek, I was just never into fiction.
Even now, I’m a pure non-fiction type of guy…(Unless we’re talking about the diet books I have to review for this blog, they’re almost all fiction 😉 )
So when I was in high school and found out I needed an extra English class to graduate, I took creative writing.
So you can blame my High School Creative writing Teacher for this post…
Scientific Research can best be described as measuring your shadow.
With some very simple tools (a measuring tape and a friend to do the measuring) you can get a very accurate measurement of the length of your shadow.
And this measurement will be correct, however it will only be correct within the confines of it’s context.
In other words, the measurement will be correct for that specific time, in that specific location…and only to you.
It won’t be correct 3 hours later, or on an angled surface. And it certainly won’t be the exact same length if it’s someone else’s shadow and that person happens to be a foot taller than you.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s all relative.
And this is exactly what scientific research is…relative.
When it comes to research done on people, it’s relative to the people in the study (their age, sex, race, training status, disease state, even mood state), relative to the measuring technique (these evolve and change all the time), relative to the specific time and place the measurements were taken (subjects in a weight loss study 30 years ago may have approached the study differently then the subjects in a study going on right now).
To take one piece of research and try to say that it’s “true” in all cases and all circumstances for all time will always be false.
The bottom line and the reason for this post – The findings of scientific research will always be relative.
This is why any new health blurb that starts with “research proves X” is almost always wrong in some situations. It’s just like saying “Your shadow is 5 feet long”.
Just something to remember the next time your skimming the fitness magazines while waiting in line at the grocery store checkout.
BP
