Rick Froman perceptively observd:
"In the spirit of my students (who have so rudely abandoned me
to eat turkey), if this was a test question, you would also have to
give credit for the word turkey given the way the question was
worded. Google Trends shows that searches for turkey also
peak each year at exactly this time. "
I stand corrected. It never occurred to me to check the words I
rejected against Google trends. This indicates the hold that a
powerful theory ("people search for words they don't know
rather that words they do"). has in blinding one to the truth
So Beth's nomination of "turkey" is as valid as "tryptophan" in
peaking each year at this time. Perhaps they're looking for
turkey recipes.. BTW, "thanksgiving" also does it but the control
conditions of "steak" and "antacid" (contributed by Bill Scott) do
not. Amazingly, "Festivus", which I assumed would be a control,
shows a regular end-of-year peak as well.
For more fun with Google, and perhaps a lesson that not all
correlations are useless for the information they provide, check
this out:
http://www.google.org/flutrends/ca/
(you can easily get results for the Ewe Ess Eh? as well)
Note that it indicates, well in advance of government health
statistics, that the swine flu epidemic has peaked.
Click on "How does it work" to see how well this prediction
tracks government statistics.
And click on
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7232/full/nature076
34.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/dfct6x
to see a paper on this remarkable application of search
statistics published in _Nature_, no less.
Finally, although this has nothing to do with psychology, it does
involve science, and is very funny, so surely that is justification
enough for this Thanksgiving post, even if you're celebrating it
on the wrong day. And a happy Thanksgiving to our American
colleagues.
A virus walks into a bar
http://tinyurl.com/yz87akc
Viewer advisory: Some basic knowledge of biology and physics
will increase your enjoyment of this video (but TIPSters are a
well-educated lot).
Stephen
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Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University
e-mail: [email protected]
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7
Canada
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