Some Dare Call it Research

[frankbmd]

As a proud member of the tedzan generation, I have to chuckle when I see the following type of post:

"Great research, Chuck. Thanks for sharing."

when all Chuck did, while sitting in the bleachers of a Poughkeepsie Buffaloes game, was pick up his iPhone to find out how many triples Arnie Batsplinter hit for the Buffaloes in 1937.

Arnie hit three triples, by the way.

Oh, how times have changed.

My mother was always interested in our family genealogy, I think in an effort to find out which ape I evolved from. She used to drag my father to graveyards and courthouses to search for dates and documents. A summary of her years of "research" given the tools at her disposal (an automobile, a driver and curiosity) is really quite impressive.

My son on the other hand used a two week free trial of ancestry.com to find out a lot more about our shared ape ancestry, that had remained a mystery to my mother.

In the age of Google and computer models, based on assumptions of varying veracity, I maintain a healthy degree of skepticism regarding anything in the 21st century that is called "research" and should therefore be considered the truth.

Not to get political, but does anyone really know how cold it really got in Topeka during the Karoo Ice Age (yeah, pick up your smart phones now and Google Karoo). Was there a carbon tax before the Karoo Ice Age to prevent global warming? I honestly don't know, but use this as an example of the point I am trying to make.

Be a skeptic both before and after you "Google It".