First, we start off with the question what are beer goggles? “Beer goggles”, is the term used to describe the effect of alcohol on the visual perception of an individual, causing them to become more sexually attracted towards someone that is not really considered “attractive”, before becoming susceptible to the effects of alcohol. In the twenty-first century we see how young people are affected with the ideas presented to them through social media. With the fast growing world of technology it makes it easier for young people to become more brainwashed by these ideas. Being a college student, I hear this term being used loosely everywhere around the campus, and its common use leads us to question whether it is actually true.
In the Mythbusters minimyth,”Beer Goggles”, the mythbusters team wanted to test the idea that alcohol truly makes us see people as more attractive than they truly are. The experiment started off by rating a cluster of photos while sober. Each mythbuster got a different set of pictures of the opposite sex, and they had to rate them on a scale from 1-10 in a limited amount of time of 5 seconds. The experiment was ran for a total of three trials these being: sober, buzzed, and drunk. After each trial each team member would be given a new set of pictures to rate, and for each trial a total score was kept in order to compare the different stages of alcohol, and the effect it had on their visual perception. The overall goal of the experiment was to see if the total score would increase along with the amount of alcohol being consumed.
Like in many experiments, this one had both strengths and weaknesses. First, we can start off by evaluating the strengths and rationalizing if they complied with the use of the scientific method. For an experiment to be plausible it is important to follow the steps of the scientific method, starting off with, “Ask a question”. The question that the Mythbusters were trying to test was if beer goggles do exist. They followed their question by constructing a hypothesis in order to have a foundation for their experiment. The team’s hypothesis was that the score of each of the team members would increase after consuming more alcohol. Next, they tested the myth with three different trials;each distinguishing a different level of alcohol consumption. Having different trials was a positive side to the experiment because it let them see any differences among the data being collected, and see if the total score of the ratings was actually increasing after each run. After completing the three trials they were able to graph the results and compare the data in order to see if the alcohol was actually affecting their visual perception, and whether or not the results were linear among the three different team members. Another strength was that the group of pictures provided for each team member consisted of a wide range of racial diversity and ages making it difficult for the members to choose a rating during the time frame provided. The diversity in the pictures strengthened the experiment because in the 5 seconds given to rate the pictures, the members had to make split-second decisions which could easily be affected by the consumption of alcohol.
All though the experiment did follow some of the steps of the scientific method, some others were excluded. One of the weaknesses of the experiment was that the team did not do any outside research in order to have some background on the concept that they were testing. In order to have background information the team could have compared the foundation of their experiment with that of others that were trying to test a similar concept. Another major weakness of the experiment was that too many variables were present. The three team members were of different ages, as well as two of them being male and one female. The team should have focused on testing one certain age group or sex because these variables could have affected the results of the experiment. Another variable that was of great weakness to the experiment was providing each team member with a new set of pictures for each new trial. It would have been best to rate the same pictures throughout the entire experiment because changing the pictures could have been the reason some of the scores were higher, and not because the alcohol made the new set of pictures more attractive. Using the old photos would have let the members see the same faces but choose a different rating due to the effect of the alcohol. Another idea that was not taken into consideration by the team was that each member would require a different amount of alcohol to become drunk. It would have been a benefit to set a different amount of alcohol to be consumed by each member based on their age and weight in order to actually become drunk.
In many aspects, the experiment was well structured and in the end it seemed to be plausible because the results demonstrated a steady improvement between each trial. Like many experiments this one could be ran again with a better foundation in order to meet all of the standards of the scientific method.