why are standards of measurement necessary?

Question

anonymous · Answer

who compares a horse to a fence post?

anonymous · Answer

Very simply, it is a poor description because it engenders the question, "Whose fence post?"  Different people have different (not necessarily incorrect) ideas about what constitutes a fence post.  So for that reason this description does a very poor job of providing an unambiguous description of the size of the object.

And of course this doesn't even touch on the issues about what the post is made of?  Does it swell/shrink, and if so, by how much?  Such questions not only cause speculation about whose fence post, but its composition and even the time of day and weather conditions present when taking the measurement!!  For all these reasons, it is a poor bench-mark (I hope people read that as a pun... because pun very much intended :D )

anonymous · Answer

When designing an experiment, it is always important to make sure that you have used scientific and statistically correct methods of design. (i.e. large sample size, repeating the experiment) The best way to prove results are reliable is to have yourself or others replicate the experiment

anonymous · Answer

help me!