>> Those scientific method worksheets we had to do at school... I work in a
>> company where people perform ACTUAL SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS, and let me
>> tell you, it looks /nothing like/ anything you saw at school!
>
> Nothing in the real world ever does. :)

I swear it's just busy-work to keep the kids quiet for a few hours...

>> (On the other hand, there /is/ an absurd amount of paperwork involved...)
>
> I can imagine the amount of detail they need to go into to produce the
> type of testing feedback their clients need. But, IIRC the company you
> work for provides analysis services, so I would expect that to be thorough

Well, the work we do theoretically affects human health. Like, if one of 
our experiments goes wrong, people could potentially *die*. Law-makers 
get really twitchy when that happens...

>> I still think they should teach String Theory in schools - to
>> demonstrate how even though something is widely respected, has brilliant
>> people working on it, and involves amazingly complex mathematics, that
>> doesn't make it science. Being testable makes it science.
>
> Then your average folk will start whining and crying about how hard
> science is and how it's not practical.

By "teach string theory", I don't mean that people should actually learn 
all the exotic mathematics involved. More that they should be taught why 
string theory isn't science, and atomic theory is.

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