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 {{w|Moon|the 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 on the tasty scale than the Moon, probably due to the fact that some things on Earth are tasty. It is unknown what the line would be like if [[Randall]] included grapefruit.

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. 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 either by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather. Although most baseballs may not be immediately lethal to consume, they are not likely to be very delicious to eat by the sheer nature of the taste of the materials that make them, something that any seasoning is unlikely to be able to mask (at least in reasonable quantities). However, it suggests that if the right seasonings were found, they would be as tasty.

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. However, Randall's analysis is flawed in multiple ways. Firstly, there are only four data points, which is insufficient to extrapolate from. Secondly, they are tightly clustered, effectively reducing it still further to two data points. Thirdly, these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object - fruit and astronomical bodies - while other subclasses are not represented at all (as the title text makes reference to). Also, it should be noted that edible things are not manufactured in 800-meter (½-mile) spheres, as that may be hard to prepare and consume.{{citation needed}} The 800-meter wide sphere could also be a small asteroid or other celestial object, but would not be very tasty, as they are made of rocks and metals, just like the Earth and the Moon. If this is true, Randall’s interpolation on the graph would probably be incorrect. Or perhaps the problem is just seasoning, just like a baseball. However, it is hard to believe that sauce is the solution to making rocks tasty.

Other fruit opinions have previously been mentioned in [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]].

The comic refers to this plot as research. This is an exaggeration, since four data points are rarely considered sufficient for research purposes.{{Actual citation needed}} Plotting data on a logarithmic plot and then drawing a line through it, is a common way to visualize data. It makes the exponential relationship of the data more comprehensible. An example of that is the {{w|Gutenberg–Richter_law}} where the magnitude of earthquakes (a logarithmic scale) in a particular region is plotted together with the frequency resulting in a fairly 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]]
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 ==Explanation==
-This comic graphs the tastiness vs. the size of four roughly spherical objects: {{w|melons}}, {{w|grapes}}, {{w|Earth|Earth}} and the {{w|Moon}}. Based on the the fact that melons and grapes are (in this context) relatively small and tasty to most people, and that planetary scale bodies are relatively large and made mostly of rocks and metals generally considered not remotely tasty,{{cn}} [[Randall]] postulates the existence of an intermediate body, one which is approximately 800 meters in diameter and "tastes okay".
+{{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 is the second comic in a row to feature fruit, graphs and predictions (after [[2892: Banana Prices]]), and continues the theme of a logarithmic axis scale to facilitate plotting a linear regression. Here the line is interpolated between known data, rather than extrapolated beyond it. Such interpolation is quite common in scientific analysis, and is often useful, but this example clearly leads to a ludicrous conclusion. Using such ridiculous analyses to show the dangers of flawed and/or sloppy methodology is a common theme in xkcd.
+This comic graphs the tastiness vs size of four roughly spherical objects: {{w|melons}}, {{w|grapes}}, {{w|Earth|Earth}}, and {{w|Moon|the 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 on the tasty scale than the Moon, probably due to the fact that some things on Earth are tasty. It is unknown what the line would be like if [[Randall]] included grapefruit.
-There are multiple ways in which this analysis is flawed, and therefore why the conclusion is unsupportable:
+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".
-* there are only four data points, which is insufficient to interpolate from.
-* these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object (fruit vs. astronomical bodies) while other subclasses are not represented at all (the title text mentions this flaw).
-* as tight clusters of [[2533: Slope Hypothesis Testing|similarly sourced data]], it effectively reduces the data down to two useful data points. This also makes the choice of log-median interpolation unjustified.
-* 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.
-* according to astronaut John Young, who visited the Moon's surface during the Apollo 16 mission, [https://phys.org/news/2006-02-mysterious-moondust.html "moondust doesn't taste half bad"]. (Although other Apollo astronauts likened its smell and taste to burnt gunpowder, so make of that what you will.)
-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 typically made of a combination of a rubber or cork center wrapped in yarn, and covered by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather. In point of fact, there are many, many common round objects that completely fail to conform to this graph, but rather than acknowledge that this analysis is fatally flawed, Randall uses {{w|special pleading}} to justify its exclusion from the graph, suggesting that the problem is that we lack "the right seasonings". While seasonings can improve the taste of foods, it's implausible that the inedible components of baseballs would be rendered "tasty" with any conceivable combination of seasonings. Even if they could, there's no evidence that such would give them the proper level of 'tastiness' to conform to the graph. This argument lampoons the use of "cherry picking" and motivated reasoning, in which researchers include only data points which fit their hypothesis and make up reasons to exclude those which don't. This is obviously very poor science, but less exaggerated versions are all too common in scientific studies.
+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. 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 either by either horsehide, cowhide or synthetic leather. Although most baseballs may not be immediately lethal to consume, they are not likely to be very delicious to eat by the sheer nature of the taste of the materials that make them, something that any seasoning is unlikely to be able to mask (at least in reasonable quantities). However, it suggests that if the right seasonings were found, they would be as tasty.
-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 occurrence, typically resulting in a statistically significant straight line.
+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. However, Randall's analysis is flawed in multiple ways. Firstly, there are only four data points, which is insufficient to extrapolate from. Secondly, they are tightly clustered, effectively reducing it still further to two data points. Thirdly, these clusters represent entirely different sub-classes of spherical object - fruit and astronomical bodies - while other subclasses are not represented at all (as the title text makes reference to). Also, it should be noted that edible things are not manufactured in 800-meter (½-mile) spheres, as that may be hard to prepare and consume.{{citation needed}} The 800-meter wide sphere could also be a small asteroid or other celestial object, but would not be very tasty, as they are made of rocks and metals, just like the Earth and the Moon. If this is true, Randall’s interpolation on the graph would probably be incorrect. Or perhaps the problem is just seasoning, just like a baseball. However, it is hard to believe that sauce is the solution to making rocks tasty.
-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.
+Other fruit opinions have previously been mentioned in [[388: Fuck Grapefruit]].
-Other absurd uses of linear regression are seen in [[605: Extrapolating]] and [[1204: Detail]].
+The comic refers to this plot as research. This is an exaggeration, since four data points are rarely considered sufficient for research purposes.{{Actual citation needed}} Plotting data on a logarithmic plot and then drawing a line through it, is a common way to visualize data. It makes the exponential relationship of the data more comprehensible. An example of that is the {{w|Gutenberg–Richter_law}} where the magnitude of earthquakes (a logarithmic scale) in a particular region is plotted together with the frequency resulting in a fairly straight line.
 ==Transcript==
-:[Graph with Y axis using an arrow indicating tastiness from "Not Tasty" to "Tasty" and X axis labeled "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> labeled).]
+{{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.]
@@ Line 43: / Line 39: @@
 [[Category:Astronomy]]
 [[Category:Baseball]]
-[[Category:Extrapolation]]