For the 'Mad Scientist' question, part of the reason I asked was the obvious, and part of it was... real scientists have to (try to) be the...

I dunno. Given some of the cackling we’ve heard from Mythbusters…

Most scientific types just tend to get vexed at street-folk levels of misunderstanding, though.

The scientific method can be explained thus:

1. What would happen if we do the thing?


2. Think about doing the thing.


3. Do the thing.


4. Write down the results vs expectations


5. Repeat steps 3-5 until a large enough sample size is met


6. Publish

Considering that most TheThings are deadly [radiation comes readily to mind] than it’s no shock that most science is mad to begin with.