One day in my fly lab in grad school some friends and I were are arguing about o

Question

One day in my fly lab in grad school some friends and I were are arguing about olive oil. The fancy guy of the group started the argument when he brought in his 30$ bottle of Extra-fancy olive oil, which he claimed would induce tongue-gasm. We already had two other oils in the lab (not counting the motor oil used to kill the fruit flies): a cheap looking olive oil that had been on the shelf for an unknown number of years, and canola oil. We found someone from another lab to label three clean coffee mugs (on the underside, out of sight), each with the name of one oil, and pour the appropriate oil into each. The labeling and oil pouring were done while the tasters were not in the room. We each used bread to taste the oils as many times as we wanted until we made our decision. Results: We all voted for the same mug of oil and were surprised to discover that it was Canola. All but one of us thought this was funny. Our conclusion: we can save money on oil.

Which of the following are true?


1. It is a double blind experiment.
2. It is a single blind experiment.
3. There was a clear placebo treatment.
4. There was a clear control treatment.
5. Our hypothesis was: all vegetable oils taste equally good.
6. Our hypothesis was: the three oils tested taste equally good.
7. This is not an experiment because professional scientific procedures were not followed.
8. If the clean coffee mugs were instead identical containers we would have a better controlled experiment
9. Fancy guy got ripped off.

Explanation / Answer

1. False. This is not a double blind experiment. The people from the other group who poured the oil into the mugs knew which mug had which oil even if your group didn't. 2. So, true, this is a single-blind experiment. 3. False, there was not a placebo in this experiment. 4. False, there was no control treatment. 5. False, as you didn't test ALL vegetable oils. 6. True. 7. Scientific procedure was followed, so seven is not true. 8. This is true. 9. Also very true. Poor fancy pants.

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