The TRUTH (may) be out there.

[Tim Y]

One just one has to find it logically.

I am taken aback almost daily at the gullibility of most people. Believing things to be true without a much of a shred of demonstrable evidence. We see it all the time in the recent political spectrum circus, but in the thoroughbred community as well.

The scientific method (the tried and true standard to which most of man's landmark discoveries have stood up to) is hardly ever in play. In most of the studies I was required to review in my zoological studies, one discovered that a premise was put forward and then an experiment was devised to compare HALF of the studied group that only varied by a single variable (lets say a drug givne to one half). The group had to be homogeneous (no mixing elderly women from Japan with steel workers from Pennsylvania, or ethnic Germans mixed with ethnic aborigines from Australia). A group of experimenters (who did not know which samples had the drug) gave out the variable and then a second group (unknown as to whom had or had not received the active drug) was to independently observe the effects. Both halves being BLIND to the variables led to them being called double blind studies, the hallmark of scientific research.

Anytime one bastardizes a scientific study, it is usually biased going into it and to ONLY observe the effects that the experimenter was looking for in the first place. ALL THE OUTCOMES need be evaluated as the scientific method requires. This CONFIRMATION BIAS is rampant in the thoroughbred literature in things like the X factor (no basis in fact), only looking a the good offspring of a sire and not considering all the well meant, but unproductive outcomes of similar breedings, being BLIND to the fact that the top percentage riders get the TOP horses race to race (let the TOP rider trade mounts for a week with the 10th place rider and see what the champ can do with those lowly mounts), or trainer stats in small samples that reflect MORE to what is in the barn today rather than any trainer competence with one group or another.

In a well thought out experiment, without bias, the initial premise of this test MAY well not turn out as expected. THAT IS THE REASON ONE UNDERTAKES IT in the first place: to find bits of TRUTH, not conjecture.

Dr. Karl Popper had the right idea in his study called falsifiability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

Of course people can continue to believe in their selective truths, fine by me, but that won't let you stay afloat at the track very long....