Today's strip is a dramatization but not an exaggeration. I hope it is humorous to the casual reader, but any scientist reading it might ask "Where's the joke?" Allow me to explain why this comic is an accurate demonstration of scientific process.
In even the most basic science classes, you learn about 'control groups.' A control group receives identical treatment to the experimental group(s) aside from the variable being tested (otherwise, you have nothing to compare). What you may not know (something I learned in grad school) is that most scientific studies include not one but multiple control groups in order to control and measure not only a single variable but every single measurable aspect of the experiment. The reason they do this is to generate as much data as possible for other studies as well as their own. It saves time and money by eliminating the need to run the experiment again to measure something they wish they had before. (Also, by measuring everything possible, researchers can gain the interest/funding/publishing from sources that might not be interested in the variable they are studying.)
Today's strip demonstrates this practice. Why "grow" fertilizer without a plant? If measuring only plant growth, it is silly, but most researchers would also measure oxygen, different forms of nitrogen, moisture, etc. and therefore would have a "no plant" control for comparison.
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