I think also that an experiment is the human attempt to make sense out of the chaotic world:
the method is you assume chaos, H0 and then disprove it.. so you don't need controls because the experiment can be run to prove maybe that the equation for velocity is valid.. (validation experiment).. (ie you can disprove the null hypothesis, chaos by showing that somehthing always occurs).. I had an argument with a collegue: I said that B may not cause disease because there was no proof. They said that B did cause disease because there was no proof against it. Basically I think I'm write in that you always start with assuming chaos and no relation between disease and exposure and then you do your experiment.. no controls are needed, i think because sometimes you are just describing, as Jay pointed out.. like with testing the velocity equation, or discovering another relationship (equation etc.) ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================