Decreasing human body temperature in the U.S. since the industrial revolution

Re:Decreasing human body temperature in the U.S. since the i... by mannykannot on Thursday January 09, 2020 @10:48PM (#22008173)

In the case of Millikan's experiment, we are considering something in the order of a dozen repetitions. With these temperature measurements, there are thousands. This alone makes it rather implausible that we have a false signal that is the consequence of an initial error.

Furthermore, unlike with the charge of the electron, there is no strong reason to believe the value is a constant. In fact, it is known to be variable, and that variability has been recognized as diagnostic (which is why we have a lot of measurements.)

As others have pointed out, the authors have considered, in detail, several conceivable sources of systematic error. We probably should not approach studies with the expectation that the people performing them are naive.

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Re:Decreasing human body temperature in the U.S. since the i... by AndrewKemendo on Friday January 10, 2020 @11:31PM (#22018146)

I wholly concur that we should assume competence in the researchers and their stated confounding factors.

That said I think skepticism is always healthy when done in good faith and is a driving factor in increasing our knowledge.

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