Science

Skepchick Quickies 8.14

Amanda

Amanda works in healthcare, is a loudmouthed feminist, and proud supporter of the Oxford comma.

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29 Comments

  1. Yeah, I learned about the original MHC/birth control thing way back in undergrad, which would have been a couple years after the original study came out.

    It is interesting that they didn’t find a preference in the non-bcp women, contrary to the prior study (at least according to the wired article – I’ll have to track down the study at some point.)

    I do think that the press release statment “”Not only could MHC-similarity in couples lead to fertility problems but it could ultimately lead to the breakdown of relationships when women stop using the contraceptive pill, as odour perception plays a significant role in maintaining attraction to partners.”” is stretching things just a tiny bit though. :) I’m sure scent plays a role in mate preference at some level, but so many other things play into the question that I’d want to see a study looking at actual mate choice preferences between BCP and nonBCP using women before I’d believe that an odor preference is going to have that drastic of an effect on final mate preference.

    Now the real question – does this mean that women who are husband hunting must insist that their dates refrain from wearing cologne or deodorant to avoid any false signals? ;)

  2. Right behind my university campus was an engineering consulting firm named “Cumming Cockburn”. Somebody finally wised up and changed the name to IBI.

  3. Hey, you should have released a patch protecting MechaDogZilla against the Rabies Virus. It’s not my fault that MechaDogZilla suffered catastrophic failure.

  4. There. Now was that so hard?

    MechaDogZilla 2.0 runs on Linux, and has full firewall protection. Viruses tremble at its impervious firmware.

  5. Give it a few years and we’ll have a giant Robo-T-Rex being -piloted- by Rat-Bot, running amok through the entire robo-animal kingdom. Nothing trumps Robo-T-Rex.

    I love science!

  6. I’m gonna take a page out of Jack Handey’s book and suggest that all will fall before Sharkbot riding on Eleph4nt’s back, trampling and eating everything they see.

  7. The new MHC research used a sample of 100 women. The old study from 1995 used 49. This is supposed to tell us about all women, everywhere?

  8. Blake, thanks for pointing that out. 49 people? How on earth can any findings be statistically significant with such a small sample size? I can hear my college stats professor’s voice scoffing in my head.

  9. How on earth can any findings be statistically significant with such a small sample size?

    You could do it, but the difference you’re looking at would have to be dramatic. The more subtle the difference you’re looking for, the larger the sample size needs to be.

    The ridiculous example would be “Analysis of a random sample of 100 women reveals that a statistically significant number of women have breasts”.

  10. Here’s a non-ridiculous example of using small sample sizes.

    Check out the entry on early experimental design on cures for scurvy.

    In this case, the variable isn’t how many people recovered, but how quickly they recovered given the various treatments. It’s a sweet, sweet trick in experimental design and execution: get from a qualitative value “did they recover” to a quantitative one “how quickly did they recover”. Helps out the math tremendously.

    If he’d tried to use “did they recover” as his measurement, he’d need a lot more people in each category for any of the conclusions to be valid.

  11. A small sample size could stand as a proof of concept, anyway. It could support the case for a more indepth study with a larger sample size. Especially when different studies of small sample sizes tend toward similar results.

  12. Bah, you folks have taken this thread completely off the rails. Talking about “sample sizes” and “statistical significance”…what utter tosh.

    I came here for comments about Robo-monkeys cyberbeakflipping Bird-bots, and I ain’t leavin ’til I sees ’em :-P

  13. And that just leads us to the land of Amphibious Attack Tigers.

    12 quattoos on the Amphibious Attack Tigers.

  14. On one of my other forums, I saw a name for months if not years before realizing that it was probably a pseudonym. Since my mother’s maiden name is Cox and most of my cousins have that for a last name, it didn’t immediately register with me that somebody probably wasn’t really named Dixon Cox.

    So I’m a little clueless sometimes …

  15. As nice as the idea of bio-bot is – I dont think RatBot, Cat-o-Tron and MechaDog would sell very well.

    RatBot would run off and get stuck in a drainpipe somewhere, Cat-o-Tron would refuse to obey instructions and shred the curtains out of spite, and MechDogzilla would spin in circles chasing its own power cable and ocassionally leak oil on the carpet. Cyber-Chimp would be even worse as it makes loud screeching noises and flings bearing grease at you

    The proposed iShotGun would be sleek and impressive – but with no user serviceable parts and being a totally sealed unit would mean you couldnt put the cartriges in.

  16. @Lyc — You forgot, MechDogzilla would also run away three times in 24 hours, pee in the kids’ bedroom, poop on a pile of Indiana Jones themed Legos, chew up a stuffed animal, gnaw through a brand-new leash in 5 minutes, claw a window screen to pieces, chew large pieces off a wooden door frame, rip holes in a carpet, and completely destroy a pillow and a couch cushion.

    Oh wait, I mean MY dog would do that. Just think how much worse she’d be if she was a MechDogzilla.

    *sigh* A dog seemed like a good idea two weeks ago …

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