[HN Gopher] Baddeley's Body Temperature and Time Perception Is O...
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       Baddeley's Body Temperature and Time Perception Is One of Science's
       Rare Singles
        
       Author : areoform
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2023-11-15 06:37 UTC (16 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (brainworldmagazine.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (brainworldmagazine.com)
        
       | areoform wrote:
       | The original paper is here, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1420890
       | and it's one of the masterpieces of science. The blog's author
       | makes it seem quite ridiculous, but these experiments were done
       | for a very important reason -- it was hypothesized that the
       | body's internal clock was chemical, but it wasn't known for sure
       | that was the case.
       | 
       | If we told time via a chemical process, then clearly that
       | reaction rate must be temperature dependent. How do you figure
       | that out? How do you tease out what is an error due to a small
       | sample size v. a noticeable effect? Thus the experiments began.
        
         | aftoprokrustes wrote:
         | I unfortunately cannot read the full paper (I am not affiliated
         | with university anymore), but from the abstract alone, "one of
         | the masterpieces of science" seems a bit exaggerated. I do not
         | want to argue that it is a bad paper without reading it, but
         | from the abstract, it seems to say "two attempts were made at
         | replicating the result that speed of counting seconds is linked
         | to body temperature, and one of them failed to replicate the
         | results", which on the face of it is important (see the debate
         | about the replicability crisis) but not that exciting.
         | 
         | Am I missing or misinterpreting anything?
        
       | readthenotes1 wrote:
       | Sounds like Terry Pratchett used this study as inspiration for
       | his trolls.
       | 
       | Of course, until there is replication and independent
       | verification, this remains junk science
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | I always assumed that trolls being made of (among other things)
         | silicon, supercomputers were the inspiration.
        
       | QuercusMax wrote:
       | This should have a (2014) in the title.
       | 
       | It's also a very weirdly written article.
        
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       (page generated 2023-11-15 23:01 UTC)