Editing 2893: Sphere Tastiness

{{comic
| number    = 2893
| date      = February 12, 2024
| title     = Sphere Tastiness
| image     = sphere_tastiness_2x.png
| imagesize = 388x392px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = Baseballs do present a challenge to this theory, but I'm convinced we just haven't found the right seasoning.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a STRANGELY TASTY MOON MADE OF RUSSIAN PELMENI - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This comic graphs the tastiness vs. size of four roughly spherical objects: {{w|melons}}, {{w|grapes}}, {{w|Earth|Earth}} and the {{w|Moon}}. Melons and grapes are, in this context, small and very tasty to most people, but the Earth and Moon are large and [https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/formation-earth-and-moon-explained made of rocks and metals], which are not usually considered very tasty. The Earth is a bit higher (tastier) than the Moon, probably due to the fact that some things on the surface of Earth are tasty. The comic takes these four data points and makes a regression with them. [[Randall]] interpolates from this line that there must be a medium-sized sphere that "tastes okay".

The title text points out that {{w|baseball (ball)|baseballs}} seem to refute this theory since they're not usually thought of as tasty, but they're between the sizes of grapes and melons, which would place them in the bottom left of the graph, way off the fit line. Baseballs are balls used in the sport {{w|baseball}}, usually made out of a combination of a rubber or cork centre wrapped in yarn, and covered by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather. Although these materials may not be immediately lethal to consume, they are not likely to be very delicious to eat. Randall suggests that if the right seasonings were found, they would be as tasty, which seems rather unlikely (at least using seasoning in reasonable quantities). This appears to be a classic case of fitting the data to the hypothesis - the 'researcher' finds ways to exclude or explain away data points which do not support the conclusion they wish to reach.

Other fruit opinions have previously been mentioned in [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]], but it is unknown what the line would be like if Randall included grapefruit.

This is the second comic in a row to feature fruit, graphs and predictions, after [[2892: Banana Prices]], and continues the theme of a logarithmic axial scale to facilitate plotting a linear regression. Here the line is interpolated between known data, rather than extrapolated beyond it. This would ordinarily be far more accurate than extrapolating outside the range of known data.{{Actual citation needed}} However, Randall's analysis is flawed in multiple ways:
* there are only four data points, which is insufficient to extrapolate from.
* these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object (fruit vs. astronomical bodies) while other subclasses are not represented at all, such as one that the title text makes reference to.
* as tight clusters of [[2533: Slope Hypothesis Testing|similarly sourced data]], it effectively reduces it down to two useful data points.
* the lack of any point not very near the end-points means that the choice of a log-median interpolation (rather than fully linear, exponential, etc) may be unjustified, just as the possible plotting of the baseball would confound the hypothesis of any simply-plottable relationship.
* the 'tastiness' scale has no indication of what assessment (subjective or objective) it records. Nor does it even have graduations, making it unknown if the graph is linear-log or log-log (or otherwise), changing the implied meaning behind the choice of straight-line interpolation.

Also, it should be noted that edible things are not manufactured in 800-meter (½-mile) spheres, as both preparation and consumption would be difficult.{{Citation needed}} The 800-meter wide sphere could also be a small asteroid or other celestial object, but would not be very tasty as (just like the Earth and the Moon) they are made largely of rocks and metals. If this is true, Randall’s interpolation on the graph would probably be incorrect. Unless the problem is just seasoning, just like a baseball; possibly it just needs whatever 'special sauce' that makes the Earth marginally more tasty than the Moon.

The comic refers to this plot as research. This is an exaggeration, since two clusters of paired points are rarely considered sufficient for research purposes. But plotting a justifiably sufficient quantity of data points on a logarithmic plot, and then drawing a line through them, is a common way to visualize an actual exponential relationship more comprehensibly. An example of that is the {{w|Gutenberg–Richter law}} where the magnitude of earthquakes (an intrinsically logarithmic scale) in a particular region is plotted together with the frequency of occurance, typically resulting in a statistically significant straight line.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Graph with Y axis using an arrow indicating tastiness from "Not Tasty" to "Tasty" and X axis labelled "Sphere Diameter (meters)" with a logarithmic scale running from 10<sup>-5</sup> to around 10<sup>8</sup> (with 10<sup>-3</sup>, 10<sup>0</sup>, 10<sup>3</sup> and 10<sup>6</sup> labelled).]

:[The graph contains two points for "Grapes" and "Melons" at the "Tasty" end of the Y axis, between 10<sup>-2</sup> and 10<sup>-1</sup> meters, and two points for "The Earth" and "The Moon" at the "Not Tasty" end, both around 10<sup>7</sup> meters. A straight dashed line shows a linear interpolation between the points. There's a circle with a question mark about halfway between them.]

:[Caption below the panel:]
: My research suggests the existence of an 800-meter sphere that tastes okay.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Charts]]
[[Category:Food]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Baseball]]