Fred W B
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| posted on 1/12/04 at 09:53 AM |
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The mysterious language of science:
The mysterious language of science:
“IT HAS LONG BEEN KNOWN”… I didn’t look up the original reference.
“A DEFINITE TREND IS EVIDENT”… These data are practically meaningless.
“WHILE IT HAS NOT BEEN POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE DEFINITE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS”… An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published.
“THREE OF THE SAMPLES WERE CHOSEN FOR DETAILED STUDY”… The other results didn’t make any sense.
“TYPICAL RESULTS ARE SHOWN”… This is the prettiest graph.
“THESE RESULTS WILL BE IN A SUBSEQUENT REPORT”… I might get around to this sometime, if pushed/funded.
“IN MY EXPERIENCE”… Once.
“IN CASE AFTER CASE”… Twice.
“IN A SERIES OF CASES”… Thrice.
“IT IS BELIEVED THAT”… I think.
“IT IS GENERALLY BELIEVED THAT”… A couple of others think so too.
“CORRECT WITHIN AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE”…Wrong.
“ACCORDING TO STATISTICAL ANALYSIS”…Rumour has it.
“A STATISTICALLY-ORIENTATED PROJECTION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE FINDINGS”…A wild guess.
“A CAREFUL ANALYSIS OF OBTAINABLE DATA”…Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.
“IT IS CLEAR THAT MUCH ADDITIONAL WORK WILL BE REQUIRED BEFORE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF THIS PHENOMENON OCCURS”…I don’t understand it.
“AFTER ADDITIONAL STUDY BY MY COLLEAGUES”…They don’t understand it either.
“THANKS ARE DUE TO JOE BLOGGS FOR ASSISTANCE WITH THE EXPERIMENT AND TO CINDY ADAMS FOR VALUABLE DISCUSSIONS”…Mr. Bloggs did all the work and Ms.
Adams explained to me what it meant.
“A HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT AREA FOR EXPLORATORY STUDY”…A totally useless topic selected by my committee.
“IT IS HOPED THAT THIS STUDY WILL STIMULATE FURTHER INVESTIGATION IN THIS FIELD”…I quit.
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JoelP
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| posted on 1/12/04 at 05:50 PM |
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lol... reminds me of uni
Beware! Bourettes is binfectious.
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kiwirex
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| posted on 2/12/04 at 08:44 AM |
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Reminds me of an email I sent today.
(Yes, weasling out of a potentially costly, and embarrassing mistake that was going to peeve 13000 of our customers).
There was definitely an "it is believed in there" and a "further analysis by colleagues"
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