[Verse 1] I had a hunch one evening, turned it into a claim, Something I could test and prove, not just a passing name, Independent variable's the match I chose to strike, Dependent is the flame it starts — effect of my design, That's the heart of research: ask it, then verify. [Chorus] X before Y, that's the cause and the crown, Correlation's a shadow till causation sits down, If a claim can't be broken, it's not science, it's a vow, Don't paint the crowd on one face — mind the fallacy now. [Verse 2] Ice cream sales shoot up in the heat of a July noon, Drowning numbers climb as well, under that same blue moon, Did the cones cause the danger down by the swimming hole? No, the summer sun's the culprit pulling both on a pole, Call that hidden puppeteer the confounding variable's role. [Chorus] X before Y, that's the cause and the crown, Correlation's a shadow till causation sits down, If a claim can't be broken, it's not science, it's a vow, Don't paint the crowd on one face — mind the fallacy now. [Verse 3] A theory explaining everything explains away all doubt, Popper said real science leaves a door for getting kicked out, Make a bold guess, risk the fall, let the data have its say, If nothing could ever prove you wrong, you're not playing fair today. [Bridge] Nineteen ninety-four, King, Keohane, Verba wrote it down, One set of rules for numbers and the stories from a town, Designing Social Inquiry, quant and qual shake hands, Same rigor, same inference, across the shifting sands. [Verse 4] In a county full of voters, the average leans one way, Don't assume your quiet neighbor does the same on voting day, Group truth isn't your truth, the levels don't align, That's the ecological fallacy — mind the leap, mind the line. [Chorus] X before Y, that's the cause and the crown, Correlation's a shadow till causation sits down, If a claim can't be broken, it's not science, it's a vow, Don't paint the crowd on one face — mind the fallacy now. [Verse 5] Only counting winners skews the story that you tell, Survivors in the sample while the failures fade and dwell, Ask who's missing from the data, who got filtered out the door, Selection bias whispers lies that look like truth and more, A random draw, a fair shot, that's what good design is for. [Verse 6] Replication is the mirror that shows if the finding's real, One study is a spark, a pattern's what should make you kneel, Peer review and open data, let the critics take their swing, Science isn't one voice shouting — it's the whole room questioning. [Outro] So test your cause, question your proof, let the falsifiable stand, Mind the gap between the group and a single person's hand, That's thinking like a scientist — piece by careful piece, Hypothesis, evidence, and doubt that never sleeps.
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