Please Fill out these Forms in Triplicate, Sir.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle applies to the world of physics, the jist of it being that any measurement taken of a physical quantity affects its absolute value (basically the act of measuring something will affect your reading, e.g. using a ruler to measure length will affect the length. You can ignore this effect if you're measuring stuff in micrometres, but it becomes significant when you measure tiny stuff like atoms). I think we can extrapolate this idea to sociological studies. Making subjects aware that they are part of a study could possibly prejudice the results. Very few people consent to be part of a study for the 'greater good of science', but have some sort of vested interest, or lack thereof. Some are being paid and so may want to give the 'right' answers instead of being objective, in the hope that they 'please' the hands that feed them. On the other hand, some people are 'forced' to become lab rats. They may be a part of an organization say, a students at a university, who are required to fill feedback forms at the end of lectures, rating lecturers. Being forced to fill these at the end of every lecture, they naturally get tired of doing so and stop. Or even if they do, it's just a formality and they put in random numbers. Whichever white-collar yuppy is analyzing them will see that lots of people are rating professor X 5/5 and will falsely think that he/she is a great lecturer, whereas in reality, most of the kids are filling the numbers randomly. Hence, the data gathered is not truly representative. So what will happen is that if the lecturer is brilliant or crap, people will fill forms. If so-so, forms are returned empty. Which means that in the subsequent analysis, the faculty will see that the university has teachers at opposite ends of the spectrum, whereas MOST of the teachers are inbetweeners (or what statisticians like to call a normal distribution).
So what do we do about this? Beats me. I'm too lazy to think of ideas. Besides I'll falsely pass this off as trying to engage my readers. Your thoughts?
Come to think of it, I'm sure there's a sociological term for the content of this post. Again, I'm pulling the lazy card.

Gimme the Bad News First.

I hate following the news. I see absolutely no point to it, except in certain circumstances. It's a total waste of time. Here's why:
First, I'll have you know that I have a vision in my life, and that is to live according to the tenets of Islam and be a Muslim who is, in a phrase I proudly coined, 'an explosion of awesomeness' (Yeah yeah, start the suicide bomber jokes already). Wherever, I go, I leave behind a trail of awesomeness. Like the Nyan Cat (minus the rainbow jet (and all that implies) coming from my rear end)

My goal is Jannah inshaAllah. Now how do I achieve all this?
By fulfilling all my responsibilities. Responsibilities as a slave of Allah SWT, son, husband (yes, alhamdulillah I got married to the most awesome woman (mashaAllah) on the planet in March, which explains my blog hiatus), medical student, grandson, friend, to my own body etc. Now that's a lot of responsibilities. And I have only 24 hours a day to fulfil them. Here's what I have to do:
I have to sleep, eat, exercise, drink water (my obligation to my body).
I have to pray 5 times a day, try for Tahajjud (easier said than done), do Hifz, increase my knowledge of Islam (My obligation to Allah SWT)
I have to study for Med School, study for my USMLEs, do research (My obligation to society)
I have to spend time with my family, especially parents and grandparents, which includes chores (My obligation to my family)
I have to spend time with my wife and in-laws (My obligation to my wife and in-laws)
I have to spend time with my friends (My obligation to my friends)
And many more small things that I don't realize I'm doing but are important too.
(although I use the harsh word 'obligation', I alhamdulillah enjoy all of the above so it's not like I'm teetering on depression)
Point being, I have so much to do in only 24 hours. I have to prioritize even in these obligations, which begs the question, 'Do I have time for anything else?' A resounding NO.
Everything I do has to have a point, be it long term or short term. The same applies to gaining knowledge. I gain knowledge in Medical School. That knowledge will help me become a better doc inshaAllah and hence, help society. Gaining knowledge about my deen will help my akhirah. But gaining knowledge about what's going on in the world today, how does that help? Will I be able to use the knowledge for good. Can I do anything if people are dying in Iraq? Yes, make dua, but other than that? It sounds apathetic but one must be practical. I have set goals to help the Muslim world. I also realize that I cannot help every single Muslim on Earth unfortunately. Yes, if I were in a position of responsibility, like in politics, I should be up to date on affairs. Now I hear you all say, "But it's a democracy (officially at least)! We can influence policy and therefore should be up to date with the going ons in the world!" Fair enough, but beside the fact that I have a bone to pick with democracy in the form its practised in today (but that's a different story. Suffice it to say that my views can be summarised by Plato's words, 'Rule of the ignorant many over the knowledgeable few'), even gaining knowledge about the news from news sources that are obviously biased taints our view on things and  can be (and are) abused to swing public views.
However, one must keep up to date related to one's fields of interest. As an aspiring doctor, I must know what's going on in the world of Medicine. As a resident of Karachi, I must know what's happening in my city; not which political party at which party's thraots, but where, say, am I most likely to hit a traffic jam when I'm on my way back from University. However, I should also have a vague idea of what's going on in the world (no details, just delete the adjectives to get the facts. A favourite line from Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird')
Finally, because of the way the human mind works, we believe stuff without question. To question everything would waste a lot of time and drive us nuts. We have to take somethings as axiomatic. One of these things that we take to be gospel truth is the news. And since the news only reports something out of the ordinary (Who'd watch the news if it gave you a list of the people who were NOT killed today?). Because of this 'bad news clustering' we tend to make out the world's situation to worse off than it actually is. And that causes us to take irrational decisions. For example, news of killings of Karachi, though only a fraction of the city's population, causes us to exaggerate the issue and hence become more paranoid than necessary. See my old post for clarity http://faysy.blogspot.com/2011/08/fear-and-loathing-in-karachi.html