The Grand Experiment! Sort of.
Several people got a really random text messages yesterday with the follow query:
“Green is my second favorite color behind blue. What are my 3 favorite colors (in order)? Please answer in the name of science.”
How It Started
Hecht and I were in the car on the way to his cousin’s teeball game listening to the soundtrack to Disney’s Tarzan because that’s how cool we are. The song “Strangers Like Me” came on which resulted in me saying about half-way through the song, “I think this is my second favorite song from this after ‘You’ll Be in My Heart’.” Apparently Mike took this to mean that “Strangers Like Me” was my third favorite song, “You’ll Be in My Heart” was my first favorite song, and I had simply forgotten to give my second favorite.
My original intention was to word the statement to avoid any further questions since I assumed beforehand that if all I said was “This is my second favorite” the follow-up question would be what my first favorite was. I assumed I had covered all the possible bases for the topic by giving my first and second favorite in one sentence. Mission failed.
My innocent statement resulted in a fifteen minute conversation about what I had meant, me primarily defending that it was a sensibly worded statement and Mike defending that he wasn’t insane as I continuously accused him of being.
After we arrived at the baseball game we dropped the argument as I spent the next 45 minutes trying to name girl’s names that start with “R” in an attempt to figure out what that night’s Horrorfest movie was (these are the kind of conversations we have ALL the time). After I finally figured it out (Seriously, Rosemary is NOT a common name), we somehow got back to the Tarzan argument and tried to come up with a fitting experiment to determine who was right.
Hypothesizing
My hypothesis was (as usual) as sarcastically, pompously extreme as possible:
Nobody else would think that way.
Mike’s hypothesis was wisely shielded for a win either way:
Well, I’m unique. OR at least some other people think that way.
The Control
As any good scientist knows… this experiment isn’t really scientific at all. Or is it? I don’t know. I always hated science. I guess it could be argued that it’s psychology or something.
But regardless, we needed a control since everybody probably doesn’t know the Tarzan soundtrack as fluently as we do. First we considered the Star Wars movies before determining that too many people would know the correct answer to that question as a result of me telling them at a previous time. Then we considered Indiana Jones and ran into a similar problem. We needed something with a variety of options, but that I’ve never stated a set opinion about aside from the top choice.
Finally, Mike recommended colors. Blue is my favorite color. I think most people know that. What they don’t know is that I don’t actually give a shit about any of the other colors in any particular order, so it was totally possible that green could be either my second or third favorite for all anyone knew. We had our control.
The Data
(via text)
The following text went out to about 16 people: “Green is my second favorite color behind blue. What are my 3 favorite colors (in order)? Please answer in the name of science.”
Ten responded, one called back. Four presumably wrote off the question as too stupid to answer. I can’t really blame them, but I was glad to those that did bother to get back to me.
Deprima: Blue, green, and your third favorite color
Allwine: Blue, green, and I guess red
Bill: Uh blue, green, and you didn’t name a third? Unless you’re talking about the spectrum? What?
—Claire: Blue black green.
Brian B: Blue, green, black [mon]? How did i do?
Jeremy/Aaron: Blue, green, and red?
Andrew: Blue. Green. Red.
Sarah: Blue, green, red.
—Connor: Twat? Blue red green
Lauren: (responding to text message via Facebook) i cant text back. blue, green, a color you didn’t mention.
(Via phone/in person paraphrased)
Adam: You didn’t say a third color. That, green, blue. Going from 3 to 1.
Elijah: *a couple minutes of explanation* Uhh… “You’ll Be in My Heart”, “Strangers Like Me” and you didn’t give a third one. “Two Worlds”? That’s the only other one on my iPod from you.
Chris H: Blue, green, red.
Nick: Blue, green, red.
The Result
Well, Connor and Claire double-handedly disproved my absurdly bold hypothesis. My wording stands proven as perfectly understandable to the vast majority, and Hecht’s thinking stands as the first train of thought to just less than 10% of the polled population, but enough to prove he’s not crazy nor is he a psychological anomaly.
Win, win.
In other news, red is an unusually popular guess for a third favorite color. Thank you to everyone who participated. You’ve brought us peace once more.
…Originally published on October 8, 2008.
