In my day job, I teach introductory biology at a community college.  Below is a multiple-choice question I wrote to test my students on the scientific method: You are testing a new drug for lowering blood pressure. For your experiment, you chose two male patients who suffer from hypertension, ages 43 and 46.  You give the placebo to the 43-year old and the new drug to the 46-year old.  What must you do in order for your results to be taken seriously by other scientists? a) Choose two men of the exact same age. b) Include a positive control. c) Include more patients in the experiment. d) Give the placebo to the 46-year old and treatment to the 43-year old. In a chapter from the book Dying of Whiteness, sociology professor Jonathan Metzl compares health parameters from two states for the purpose of contrasting "the price of Tennessee's refusal to embrace healthcare reform" with that of Kentucky's...(Read Full Article)