
A dead salmon has become a scientific celebrity after its brain supposedly lit up when shown pictures of humans during a brain scan. Some bloggers last week reported that the fish was still thinking or that the research is evidence of an ethereal soul [which is what Winky McSciencey is saying]. However, the study was done to show that data from an fMRI brain scan can lead to false positives — misleading results — if not carefully analyzed.
"The goal of the salmon poster was to encourage the minority of researchers who report uncorrected statistics to move forward and begin using basic multiple comparisons correction in their research," says study leader Craig Bennett, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In a nutshell, the data reported by Bennett and colleagues in no way suggests the salmon's brain was functioning, but rather reveal anomalies that can be misleading if you're not careful. More>>
- Leviticus 11: SkepticsAnnotatedBible.com
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