Based on this article entitled \"Quinoa is the new weight loss superfood!\": 1.

Question

Based on this article entitled "Quinoa is the new weight loss superfood!":

1. Which three (3) of the following six (6) guiding principles of scientific thinking (ruling out rival hypotheses, correlation vs. causation, falsibility, replicability, extraordinary claims and parisomy( occam's razor) are claimed in the article and does the research follow each 3 of the guiding principles chosen? Give a brief description.

Thank you.

Most people who start a diet do not continue and, for those that do, they tend to gain all the weight back that they lost. The American talk show called 'The Doctors' recently discussed during one of the aired episodes that eating quinoa will, "melt body fat away." Moreover, eating a grain like quinoa slow-releases energy so that you feel revved up throughout the day. Eating quinoa has been hailed by millions of women as an exceptional slim-down method. Furthermore, recent research by Dr. Waterman from the University of Slignaven suggests that eating quinoa twice per day will lead to a weight loss of about 8 pounds per week. "Really, it does not matter how much you actually eat, as long as you eat this special grain!" One study to date that was carried out by Dr. Kendall McCloud and her team in 2014 found that weight loss occurred amongst the 30 women evaluated. That is, 30 women ate quinoa twice per day while 30 others did not. After a one-week period, each person had their weight taken. Overall, a total of 200 pounds was lost among the women who ate quinoa (the results varied for each person) Even though and as Dr. McCloud herself noted, with this many women in the study it was too hard to control for extraneous variables like eating habits or exercise practices, "The results fit perfectly with my predictions." "There is a statistically significant relationship showing that eating this particular grain twice per day causes women to loss a substantial amount of weight." She further noted that the results prove that quinoa is a weight-loss superfood! How does consuming quinoa result in weight loss? Well, several researchers have suggested that quinoa is mostly made up of water and fat soluble substances that bind to lipids in the cell's membrane and as a result, we naturally expel these when we breathe, sleep, or eat! This is truly amazing! Furthermore, quinoa absorbs twice the number of fat cells as compared to exercise alone Try this wonderful grain today and see the results for yourself!

Explanation / Answer

Let us briefly discuss each of the six guiding principles of scientific thinking in context of this article and see why/why not "Quinoa is the new superfood" follows them.

1. Ruling out rival hypothesis: As it is mentioned that it was hard to control for the extraneous variables like eating habits or exercise habits, therefore we were not able to eliminate these factors. Thus the observed loss in weight cannot be ascribed to a single factor (in this case eating quinoa) and it is quite difficult to disentagle the effects of these different factors due to confounding. So NO, this is not one of the guiding principles.

2. Correlation vs. caustion: Yes, this article follows this guiding principle. According to the article "There is a statistical significant relationship showing that eating this grain twice a day causes a woman to lose significant amount of weight." Weight loss thus shows a positive relationship with eating quinoa, and both are positively correlated. Also since they show a cause-effect relationship, eating quinoa(cause) leads to weight loss(effect) leading to caustion.

3. Falsibility : Scientists took a experimental group of 30 to test the claim that quinoa is a superfood leading to weight loss and published the results in this article. The control group also consisted of 30 people but there results are not published in this article i.e. we do not know whether the 30 people of the control group lost weight or not. Hence due to lack of information we cannot refute the claim. Hence the principle of falsibility applies here to due to information withholding.

4. Replicability : No this article does not follow this particular principle. We did not test the hypothesis multiple times to ensure its validity. As it is mentioned "One study to date" i.e. only one study was done on a very small sample where only 30 woman were evaluated in a very selective environment.

5. Extraordinary claims: Yes this article follows the principle of extraordinary claims. The claim that eating quinoa will lead to weight loss of 8 pound per week is staggering. Of the experimental group of 30 woman, the total weight loss was a staggering 200 pounds over the course of one week translating to about 6.67 pounds per person on an average in one week.

6. Parisomy: No this article does not follow the scientific principle of parisomy. Due to confounding of the different activities in a small experimental group, we cannot isolate the real reason for weight loss and hence do not have the simplest reason for the drastic weight loss, keeping other things constant.

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