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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Biologist here.

It’s widely agreed in the hard sciences that education and nutrition “research” is crap.

As with PP economist, I’m not saying we shouldn’t think about best practices, just let’s not put blind faith in education “research” and demand “data” to make a decision.

I’d be willing to read the tiered study you’re talking about - want to link it?  (Is it truly _experimental_ as you say?)[/quote]

dp:  Let’s be clear — education and nutrition research is crap, but it’s because the research can’t be done in well-controlled ways.  It’s not because the researchers are idiots; it’s just the nature of the fields.

Nonetheless, that doesn’t change the limitations of the research.  [/quote]

I’m the PP this post is replying to. (The biologist)

YES.  Exactly.  It’s a limitation of the fields, not that the people are idiots.

The problem is when people say “But your opinion is invalid because you’re ignoring the RESEARCH.  You have to have DATA.”  People who say that implicitly equate physicists measuring the Planck constant to 18 decimal places, to an education study that shows with p<0.05 that “homogeneous mixing is good”.  These are two TOTALLY different kinds of research.  One probably shouldn’t even use the same word.

I feel similarly about the STAR school report cards.  These are approximate measures at best, and worse the STAR criteria are targets for manipulation.  The STAR ratings are guidelines only, due to the inherent uncertainty of the approach. When parents tell me “well that school is better because it has 5 instead of 4 stars!!!” I just roll my eyes.  STAR ratings are useful ahorthand to get a view over dozens of schools.  But an experienced parent or teacher visiting two schools is far better than the STAR data.
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