Don't Believe Everything You Hear!

 Hey Everyone!

I have learned SO MUCH in just these past two weeks and I'm excited to share some of that knowledge with all of you! A theme I've noticed in several of my classes has been the importance of looking into the research myself before believing things I read or hear. I definitely don't think I used to do that haha. Especially if it was a friend or family member telling me something, I'd believe it without question. But I'm learning that even if there seems to be data proving that things are a certain way, there are many ways numbers can be misrepresented and graphs can be misleading. There are many components that must be included in an experiment to get correct data. 

Have you ever heard something and passed it on to a bunch of people only to find out later that you were wrong? I definitely have! I remember one specific time in high school. I had donated blood for the first time and was talking to a classmate who had donated plasma instead. He said that when they take your blood it cools down to room temperature so when they give it back to you after removing the plasma, it's freezing cold and feels like ice in your veins. When people saw the bandage on my arm the rest of the day at school they would ask how it went or say how brave I was because they were too scared of needles to donate blood. I would answer something along the lines of "Oh donating blood is nothing! You should hear what happens when you donate plasma!" and then I would proceed to tell them the process my classmate had explained to me. Well, several years later I decided to donate plasma for myself. I discovered that it wasn't cold blood throughout the process that makes people's arms cold, it's the saline they give you after to help your body replace the plasma that was taken. I felt so stupid for believing what one person had told me and passing false information to so many people! But with all of the things I've learned this week I'm a lot less likely to make a mistake like that again. I know how to check the facts! 

I don't have room in this post for all of the things I learned about finding truth, but I'd like to touch on just a couple key points. When conducting an experiment it's really important to have a control group. If you are trying to prove that one thing is similar or different than "normal", there is no way to know what "normal" is unless you collect data for that group as well. Another essential aspect of a quality experiment is that your sample group must include a variety of different kinds of people. You can't claim your data represents the entire population of the United States if you only surveyed/observed teenage girls. Depending on the group you are studying, you should include people that differ in age, race, gender, etc.

In closing I want to mention a really interesting documentary called "The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter" that gives an example of what I've discussed in this post. It discusses the popular belief that the world is overpopulated and there are not enough resources to support everyone. I can definitely say I was surprised by their findings and the issues they discussed that are different from what many people might expect. I highly recommend watching this documentary if this topic interests you! (Part 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8XQjfG2wYc (Part 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw3OQgFsHZI 

Well, that's all I've got for today, see you next week!