Panda Bears and Flowers / Clever Hans

Yep, it happened again, I murdered another plush toy to make a cute bag out of it. Inappropriate-guilty-feelings aside, I am actually so happy with this panda bear backpack. And I bought him for $3 from an op shop (yes, it's a male panda bear), so at least there were no sentimental attachments there. If you missed it the first time around, I wrote up some instructions on how to make a DIY plush toy bag here. The only difference with this one is that I added two straps (thrifted belts) instead of one! My pretty floral blouse & red skirt are both from Sheinside! Many thanks to Sheinside for providing them to style! blouse - c/o Sheinside skirt - c/o Sheinside socks - Shop With Romi shoes - c/o Yes Walker bag - DIY hat - c/o Wholesale If you're a casual reader of science stories (or have joined IFLS on facebook) you may have heard people talking about "blinding", or that an experiment was not reliable because it wasn't "blinded" or even "double-blinded". You may have thought, what on earth does "blinding" mean and more importantly, how on earth does anyone know what's happening if no one can see what's going on?? Well "blinding" is one of the most important concepts to science. Human beings, clever as we may be, are unfortunately very susceptible to something called bias - that is, seeing what you want to believe. That's where the story of Clever Hans comes in. Clever Hans was the name of a horse who lived in the early 1900s. His owner claimed that Clever Hans could not only count, but could also do complex maths problems and understand German. His owner would ask him questions, and Clever Hans would answer by tapping his foot. His owner paraded his horse around Germany, showing off his apparent skills. Clever Hans performing in the 1900s in Germany. Also check out all them boater hats - I'd be so trendy if I were to go back to 1906 ;) (Image source) Clever Hans was investigated by veterinarians and teachers. They removed the audience to make sure Clever Hans wasn't getting cues from them, and they even used different questioners (other than the horse's owner) to rule out the possibility of fraud. Then they made a realisation - if the person asking the questions knew the answer to the questions, then Clever Hans would get the right answer 89% of the time. But if the person asking the questions didn't know the answers themselves, Clever Hans was only right 6% of the time. It seemed that Clever Hans was clever in a way, although he didn't know how to count or do maths - he had learnt to tap his foot whenever the questioner expected the horse to tap its foot. Take away the expectations of the questioner, and the horse had no idea. This was a very important observation for science and where the idea of "double blinding" comes from. Now scientists make sure, especially in fields where animals or humans are being measured, that not only does the participant not know what condition they are in, but the experimenter is also "blind" to the conditions of the experiment as well. Only at the end of the experiment, when all the tests have been done, are both the subject and experimenter allowed to know what was really going on. And that's your neat science fact of the day. p.s. I announced another giveaway earlier today! Enter here if you haven't already. Bloglovin' | Facebook | Twitter |  Instagram | Chictopia | Lookbook | Tumblr