consumer reports = owned

i have long been a skeptic of said experts 

and this just proves me correct. 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16691288/&GT1=8921

They ran the experiment, and produced results that didn't smell right to some people.   

So those people in the 'mmm, this doesn't smell right' camp attempted to replicate the findings, but in doing so, came up with data indicating the car seats are much safer.

They scratched their heads and dove into the details of the original study a bit further.  They uncovered an error by the first group in establishing or calibrating the strength of their experimental impact forces.

So, using the process of the scientific method, the second group managed to not only overturn the firsts results, but also establish a clear and compelling explanation why the original study was flawed.

And then CR retracted their previous report.

I don't see anything wrong with this picture.  This sort of thing happens every day in science. 

This is the process of discovery.

When Lewis and Clark reached the headwaters of the Missouri River, exactly how to make river passage all the way to the Pacific Ocean was far from clear.  They had to send smaller exploratory parties up many promising looking tributaries, all of which eventually proved to be dead ends.

Would we brand their expedition failed because of these mistakes?

Or didn't die.

They said it sucked, when it didn't suck so bad.

If they were going to get it wrong, that's the side of wrong I like.

The articles that I read said that CR tested the seats at 70mph, instead of 35-38mph.  All but 2 carseats failed at 70mph.  To me, this still sounds like good data, since cars routinely travel at 70mph. 

The bigger question to me is - why don't we crash test vehicles (and vehicle accessories, such as carseats) at the speeds at which they are normally driven?  (Or maybe it's only us weirdo Californians that drive 80% of their miles on freeways?)

whatever

They also retracted the flawed data when they determined it was flawed...and not very quietly either, issuing press releases that the MSM picked up and ran with, etc and so forth and so on.   Not exactly the move of say, a big Tobacco company who got 17 bazillion reports showing one of their products was lethal.

The history of science and discovery is absolutely littered with false results, mistakes and retractions...and this is stuff that progress absolutely depends upon.

Your stated approach to reject and distrust anything that has to do with science because of incidents like these seems to me a little like forsaking any future copulatory opportunities for a lifetime just because you picked up a bad case of crabs in a Phuket *trollop*house.

I mean, the problem here seems to me more one of misguided expectations....

JMO

there is very little to do with "science" where consumer reports is concerned. opinions yes, science, rarely. JMO



they didn't determine it was flawed and bring it forth. it was brought forth when their data was so far off of the nhtsa testing and the car seat makers said WTF. in their defense they did come right out and say "we *fudge*ed up."