5:03 Late Friday Afternoon   Autoimmune Disease Woo! I won't be paying for college next year. Thanks scholarship committee! Things...right now...are good. So with regards to science, i can't put into words how much I hold the scientific method on a pedestal. and how much faith i have in the values of constants, like pi, the mass of an electron, the speed of light, various R-constants, Planck's constant, etc. you can't tell me these things are bullshit, and that all of science is bs-ed like a high school english paper. there is a difference between believing the results of one study and accepting something when the results of many experiments are all the same. that said, I understand the difference between studies of applied science and the studies of pure science -- this is where statistics kicks in. if i have learned anything as a science major who works in a laboratory setting, it's that measuring instruments have a finite accuracy level. i'm playing with an electrode right now that is throwing numbers at me that I know aren't accurate because my sample concentrations are below the detectable threshold for the instrument. However, when you're within the accuracy threshold, and you've followed the scientific method, with replicates to lower statistical error... bleh, I don't know. no one cares but me, essentially what I'm trying to say is that i don't care what you choose to believe, lungs coated in tar are tangible evidence that cigarettes are bad for you. I'm not seeing a whole lot of room for statistical error or even confounding factors. and all i'm trying to say is that you can determine the breakdown of chemicals in secondhand smoke and make inferences based on other studies and life experience in general to know that them chemicals ain't safe ta be inhalin'. that's not to say that there aren't several studies that were not carried out very well...take most social science studies, nutritional studies, even a great many medical experiments. in a roundabout way i guess i'm telling myself that being informed about the methods and previous research leading to results I read in the paper is far more important than either believing every article that comes out or discounting science as a whole. . theend .