Let's hear it for failure

摘要

Imagine that you are interested in the cause of the rising concentration of methane, an important greenhouse gas, in the atmosphere. You know that termites produce lots of methane in their guts. So you set out to test whether increasing concentrations of atmospheric methane are the result of increasing numbers of termites on Earth. (Although this may sound wildly implausible, termites are an important source of atmospheric methane.)