Spiders - Certainly the case for 'Er Indoors

[ianrauk]

Why Women Are Really Afraid Of Spiders

 

[Velorum]

Well Im male and Im petrified of them!

 

[wafflycat]

At Chez Wafflycat, it's the female of the house who removes them.

 

[XmisterIS]

I'm a man, and I always do the screaming with the pointing and the hopping and the hand-wringing when I see a spider.

 

[theclaud]

Another duff "study" holding up well then!

 

[Cubist]

"Dr Rakison's report, published in the New Scientist, states that the girls looked at the picture containing a happy face for longer than the scared one.
However, the boys looked at both images for an equal amount of time.
He concluded that the girls found the happy face puzzling as they were expecting to see the spider paired with a frightened face."

What a load of utter bollocks. He could just have easily concluded that the girls were "more concerned for the frightened face" or he could have concluded that it was because they were expecting to see lots of nasal hair like daddy. Fancy using 11 month olds any way. If he used anyone older he could have asked them, and wouldn't have had to guess what they were thinking. Pillock.

 

[palinurus]

At Chez Wafflycat, it's the female of the house who removes them.

Same here. Ms P. just picks 'em up from outta the bath with her fingers. I can't bear to watch.

 

[661-Pete]

Hmmm.... no way am I a demon statistician but .....

Sample size: 10 boys + 10 girls.
Interpretation of these observations?
Variance in the result?
Confidence factor?

Hmmm....

 

[Gromit]

I'm a girl and I love spiders. In my old flat I had a spider that sat on my sofa same time every night watching TV.

I don't know how anyone can be scared of them especially in this country, there much smaller than us.

 

[Velorum]

In my old flat I had a spider that sat on my sofa same time every night watching TV.

Are you sure that it was the same spider each time?



They may have been taking it in turns.

 

[bicyclerubber]

Seems like my favourite gadget is called for!

Bug Buster

There is a nice video on the site of one catching a big spider, a moth and a wasp...

 

[Arch]

Spoke to my sister last night and she was telling me that there had been a huuuge spider in Oli's bedroom, big enough to make anyone go "Ugh!" if only from surprise. Her other half was in bed with a vomiting bug, so she had to do the whole fetch a glass and postcard thing to get it out, all the while not wanting to make a fuss so as not to induce a phobia in Oli, and hiding her fear. Her main worry was, finding a glass big enough. She did it, and got Oli to say goodbye to it before it was turfed out into the garden. Apparently there's another spider taken up residence in the stairwell, and he says good morning to it every day...

 

[threebikesmcginty]

I don't mind the small ones but some of them big buggers are terrifying, they could easily wrestle you to the ground...

Mrs 3BM just screams at the sight of any spider!!

Always find it strange that there's money for this kind of research - wouldn't he be better off working on cures for some nasty disease or something?

 

[Arch]

Always find it strange that there's money for this kind of research - wouldn't he be better off working on cures for some nasty disease or something?

This sort of thing is often, I believe, not the primary research - it'll be an off shoot of a bigger project, or possibly, paid for by an interested party - like Mcvities might commission 'research' in to dunking biscuits.

If it's part of a bigger project, it might just be a small thing written up to attract attention and hence more funding opportunities. Or just the media picking up on something out of context. One of my friends is researching the use of, and trade in, fur in Britain throughout the ages - it's a full PhD based on animal bone evidence, but just one little part of it made the Scottish Times, because she found evidence of foxes possibly being 'farmed' for fur in Iron Age Orkney. They chose to illustrate the article with a pic of Raquel Welsh in her chamois bikini from One Million Years BC, or whatever it was....

 

[threebikesmcginty]

like Mcvities might commission 'research' in to dunking biscuits.

Now that's proper research - I seem to recall a formula had been calculated for optimum dunking, the 'Today' programme reported it a few years ago.

Ah yes - here it is!!....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/220400.stm