Talk:3101: Good Science

Should I find it comforting that, faced with "ammonium hydroxide", the student(?) decodes that as basically just "ammonia"? I mean, there are differences between anhydrous and hydrated versions, but it implies a certain amount of relevent scientific knowledge. If I mentioned "whateverium phlobotomide", the uninitiated would (as well as maybe stumbling over any unfamiliar parts of the name) probably be blind to it potentially being just a technical variation of the essential part of the name. Or, to put it another way, the technobable involved if you were to be told that all the dangerous dihydrogen monoxide had been swapped out for hydrogen hydroxide. (Or that it had been even more dangerous by introducing some trace amounts of nullanol.) 92.23.2.228 22:49, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

When I studied chemistry, you would get an earful from the professor if you ever dared to utter the phrase "ammonium hydroxide", because ammonium hydroxide does not exist. It's not a molecule, and there's no crystalline ammonium hydroxide, either; what you have is aqueous ammonia, a small fraction of which gets protonated by water, forming some ammonium ions and some hydroxide ions. Calling that ammonium hydroxide would be akin to calling aqueous acetic acid "hydronium acetate". Perhaps that's why ammonia is in italics in the comic: to emphasize that the reply is meant as a correction. --Itub (talk) 11:03, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm thinking that there are two uses for rigour without curiosity. The explanation covers the professional motive: to have a career in producing good-looking results. There is also a political motive: to block a line of research, to prevent its results from gaining traction. Table 1 of this: [1] covers a variety of kinds of sociology, most of which could have opponents. 112.213.42.56 02:06, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I think there's an alternative reading for this one in the last panel, the first time I read it as dismissing the student's question and continuing her statement, which is a quite common move in other comics and always implied with ....... This way, the research became a meta-critique of bad science and somewhat links to rigor vs curiosity. First time commenting here, idk what to do now. 2A11:3:200:0:0:0:0:2004 03:21, 12 June 2025 (UTC)?

Miss Lenhart has made the mistake common among many scientists of failing to include repeatability among her factors to be tested. Had she done so, ammonia would have disappeared from the results. 82.13.184.33 08:28, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

It's on the list, right below "adequate sample size" and "whether the lab has a lucky mascot" 185.177.139.23 10:00, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

I think there's a potential spin on the title text that I don't currently see addressed, but it might be in line with Randall's seeming attitude towards such matters: Rigour without curiosity doesn't need to be *wrong*, it's just that it's *joyless*. Or maybe *soulless*? The idea being that if you do rigorously correct but completely incurious science, you're doing it wrong even if the results themselves are technically correct. (Which they probably would be, given all that rigour.) Viewed this way, it's a critique of a particular kind of science that often comes in for criticism: endless variations on some (seemingly) unimportant experimental theme, for example, might be viewed as a way to generate publications without generating any actual advancement of science. 45.74.123.106 (talk) 19:07, 12 June 2025 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I'd argue that the student's response isn't only demonstrating good science by way of skepticism, as the current explanation suggests, but in fact demonstrating the first 5 factors all at once! Collaborating in the lesson, rather than it being purely a lecture, skepticism of other's claims (as mentioned already), questioning her own beliefs (is ammonia more important in science than I realized?), trying to falsify hypothesis (the hypothesis that ammonia is essential in science, in this case), checking citations (wait, what is this claim based on?). Plenty of good science being done! PotatoGod (talk) 16:18, 13 June 2025 (UTC)