You’ll find below a shortlist of gems from students’ final. The exam occured already a few years ago so I guess it is enough anonymous now to be posted (and which student would revendicate paternity for a gem?). These quotes are out of context, so sometimes they appear even funnier. Some are cute, some are really unfortunate. (I personally think they do not necessarily reflect upon students qualities, since some of these were taken out of quite good works.)
These gems are mostly revolving around the concept of randomness & sampling (sampling plant species with a grid in meadows). I suspect this year one professor messed things out, so maybe we shouldn’t go stone students for what they wrote… (shocked? people used to stone each other for fairly smaller outrages in the past, didn’t they?).
Without delay, here are the gems:
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“Random sampling is by definition random, but human beings cannot have a random reasonning.”
Obviously they can!
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“Furthermore, randomness of samples is biased by the unconscious of the sampler, which will try to avoid a stone, a bullshit, or which will even try to lower the sampling to below the middle line because of the fear of outpassing the border.”
Teachers always do appreciate respect for the protocole, but usually they prefer when this respect is conscious. Else, what exactly do you mean by line of the middle?
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“Let’s also note that, in order to publish results, random sampling is oftent the only tolerated method”.
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“Indeed, by nature, Man is not able to sample randomly a place, when throwing the grid for example. He will generally chose a more sunny place…”
Huh? Methink it’s more the “student’s nature”…
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“To get randomness, (…) one should use a hoop or a dice”.
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“The roadside is also a place with individuals, even if one should admit that it is currently fairly uncommon to see people walking on country side roads.”
Ditto! May I ask how it does relate to seed dispersal?
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“Furthermore, the energy of statistical tests is not dissipated in random samples”.
Voodoo science!
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“An hypothesis for the observed species richness gradient in the meadow may be that cars driving on the road would put seeds back in aerial suspension.”
They drive so fast these days!
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“If we throw the grid randomly, we may never find what we are looking for”.
Try again!
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“Rain drop streaming serve the purpose of germinative particles transportation”.
Panglossian enlightment.
For more exam gems, in botany this time, it’s just here.
