Blue Collar Scientist

Written by Iatra Polygenos

Jeff’s last request was for me to write a blog post for him. I have written this and posted it at Yucantgee Eventually Shuts Up.

The Great Beyond, the blog from Nature that tracks news stories on science, has a post up that tracks the best of the science-related April Fool’s jokes from this year.

Their link to the first one, about Dextre, is now dead: check here instead.

Now that 4/1 is over, I can say that my favorite April Fool’s science joke this year is this one:

New research shows that when you see this:

you act more creatively.

To assess the effects of brands on behavior, the researchers selected two competing brands, both well respected by consumers, with distinct and well-defined brand personalities. “Apple has worked for many years to develop a brand character associated with nonconformity, innovation and creativity,” said Chartrand, “and IBM is viewed by consumers as traditional, smart and responsible.”

The team conducted an experiment in which 341 university students completed what they believed was a visual acuity task, during which either the Apple or IBM logo was flashed so quickly that they were unaware they had been exposed to the brand logo.

The participants were then asked to list all the different ways they could think of to use a brick. Those who had been exposed to the Apple logo listed a lot more different uses for bricks. Not only that, but their uses were considered to be more creative by independent judges.

The research is groundbreaking in at least one area:

“This is the first clear evidence that subliminal brand exposures can cause people to act in very specific ways,” said Gráinne Fitzsimons. “We’ve performed tests where we’ve offered people $100 to tell us what logo was being flashed on screen, and none of them could do it. But even this imperceptible exposure is enough to spark changes in behavior.”

This research is timely, because I bought my first Mac in February, and I’m working this week on an essay about my experience with it. Although I have some serious criticisms of the Mac, I’m quite pleased with it on balance and like it better than any other computing platform I’ve used. And it has seemed to be easier to write and do other intellectual-property production tasks on the Mac than on other computers I’ve owned.

Now maybe research is telling me why that would be. Every time I open my Macbook, I see the Apple logo, as well as a JREF sticker. Surely the combination is unbeatable.

Remember, there is a meetup this week, on Thursday, March 20, in the cafe at Barnes and Noble on Northern Lights, starting at 7:00 PM. Look for the white Macbook laptop with the JREF sticker if you don’t know any of us. Details can be found here.

Wired is reporting on the top 12 greenest cars sold in the US, and on the dirtiest dozen cars sold here. And we have a good illustration of what we are up against in doing science outreach on the page. From the story:

[They] examined everything from emissions and fuel economy to the pollution generated during the manufacturing process to determine the 12 cleanest, and 12 meanest, cars sold in America.

And from the comments:

This analysis sadly misses out the critical part of the analysis which is the embedded manufacturing energy cost of the vehicle. Under this type of analysis vehicles that are energy intensive in manufacturing such as the Toyota Pious do rather badly. To find out which is the greenest vehicle you need to add up the manufacturing environmental cost and the in use fuel environmental costs to get the overall cost.

and:

A better list would take into account the actual process that each car undergoes before it is put on the road. How much material, recycled materials, factory pollutants, ect.

Now, I’m frankly not sure how to interpret this. It could go one of two ways. It could be that these commentators are raising a valid, though obscure methodological criticism of the report, which seems to have considered these issues, but maybe didn’t treat them in the best way. But it seems more likely that they just didn’t read the story, skipped ahead to the two lists, and assumed they were based on MPG ratings.

The lesson? There’s always going to be the percentage that isn’t paying attention to what you say when you are doing outreach. And you are in constant danger of missing a critical but obscure problem with the research you are discussing. Either problem can sink your efforts, and there’s only two solutions: Prepare well, and be engaging.