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Comment by harpastum | Hacker News Reader

Try this thought experiment: play eight songs from different genres of music, flipping a coin 5 times for each song. Whichever song had the most heads must make you more likely to flip heads.

How is this study different from that?

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It is not. If they had 10 cheeses exposed to hip-hop, 10 to classical, 10 controls, etc., and the differences in rating where statistically significant they would be onto something. But per the study factsheet, they used just one box per music type so it is exactly as you say, one box just tasted better but it could be for any number of reasons: https://hkbgehtanland.ch/assets/pdf/20181129_hkb_cheese-in-s...

I feel like this experiment, like Swiss cheese, is filled with holes.

Wow that joke was very cheesy

I dunno, I thought it was pretty gouda

Works as long as you're not one of those people who pronounce it "gao-da"

how are studies like these even funded? Shouldn't the community have their methods peer reviewed before going through? Like the sibling comment, there are so many holes in this study. waste of $

It was an art project.

It's genius marketing-- they were guaranteed a "surprising" conclusion that people widely share.

edit: The point I'm making, perhaps too tersely based on the below response, is a flawed study can be designed where every outcome would be "surprising" but obviously the rationale supporting that outcome would be poor. That people tend to share surprising outcomes (ie-- post it on Hacker News)-- makes it genius marketing.

I believe the GP’s point was that it wasn’t surprising regardless of the outcome (unless you find it surprising the author would make a test whose outcome is correlated to the test itself).

Which I don’t think is a particularly new concept or a good use of smart people’s time. Nor would people ever enjoy music, film, food, x hobby, based on what a scientific study determines is ‘best’ in the first place, making the whole thing based on the false premise that an outcome could ever be known through this method.

Thanks. I clarified what I meant above.

I can see this being legit but not because of the lyrics. Hip hop has deeper bass lines which could vibrate into the cheese vs other types of music. Those vibrations could account for a change in growth of the cheese culture.

The point of the parent comment is to illustrate that there is in fact no evidence to support the claim that hip hop makes food taste better.

The existence of a theoretical mechanism by which hip hop could impact cheese flavor, possibly making a better or possibly making it worse, doesn't change the fact that there is no meaningful evidence.

Or the position of the boxes. Or the bacteria/yeast content of the boxes. Or the humidity gradient. Or the temperature gradient in the room. Or the light exposure. Or differences in handling.

Or just random chance, as the grandparent suggests.

The experiment didn't control for any of those.

If I had to place a bet, I'd bet differences in handling, and probably temperature and humidity gradients have a stronger effect than the sound.

This is the level of an average elementary school science fair project, and shouldn't be treated differently.

More info: https://www.thelocal.ch/20181102/swiss-cheese-maker-experime...

"I hope that the hip-hop cheese will be the best." (Nov 2018) And he's pictured laying his head and hand on one of the wheels:

https://www.thelocal.ch/20181102/swiss-cheese-maker-experime...

That might be interesting, actually. Has it been done? I've been an advocate for "coin flipping is not random" since I was young and could flip heads or tails on demand (about 80% accurate, but I didn't practice all that much). Caveat being I catch the coin in my hand on the way down (not letting it hit the floor) and know which side was up before flipping.

Essentially, does the beat of the song (or whatever) influence timings and force applied enough to bias the results?

I’ve had similar experiences. I recall have mystical like experiences where I felt like I was controlling randomness itself vs. just being highly attuned to controlling the coin flipping ;)

This was done by an art school. It's a joke.

The double punchline is it's about as mathematically sound as the average nutrition study.

Remind me again about how many published studies are replicatable?

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