I enjoyed last night’s episode of Mythbusters for a variety of reasons. For starters, I now have Smart Board Envy™, projectiles and explosions are always fun, and seeing Adam, Jamie, and Kari drunk was a hoot.

The social scientist in me, though, really enjoyed the “beer goggles” experiment. In fact, the show, edited down to just include that section, would make a great primer on “how social scientific experiments work” for my undergraduate methods course when I teach it again, presumably next fall. On the other hand, I was less thrilled with the “sobering up” experiment, but the comedy factor of drunken Adam trying to run on a treadmill without a handrail, with all-too-predictable results, made up for the scientific shortcomings therein.