[[Two people are sitting at a desk reviewing things.]]
Person 1: We're concerned that some of your results may be tainted by the fact that your human subjects are *awful*.
Person 2: What do you mean?
Person 1: Several participants in your drug trial were arrested for arson.
Person 2: Side effects can be unpredictable.
Person 1: They were in the control group.
Person 1: In your prisoner's dilemma study, 80% of the participants chose to betray their partners *before* the experimenter had a chance to tell them about the reward.
Person 2: Definitely troubling.
Person 1: In one experiment, your subjects repeatedly gave electric shocks to a stranger in another room.
Person 2: That's a famous psychological-
Person 1: This was a study of moisturizing creams!
Person 2: Yes, we're not sure how they snuck in all that equipment.
{{Title text: After meeting with a few of the subjects, the IRB actually recommended that you stop stressing out so much about safety guidelines.}}
xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing.
