I was recently confronted with the task of framing a survey question for Theory of Knowledge (a philosophy discussion class) to prove a hypothesis regarding human thought or interaction. The assignment asked us to survey a sample group of approximately 100 people to test if a hypothesis we came up with was true as well as to discover the methodological problems involved in surveying people for information. Little did I know that I was about to embark upon a journey into the blackest depths of the human mind.

The project began innocently enough: the group and I squabbled over various philosophical hypotheses until we finally alighted upon one. Some might claim that our hypothesis was superficial, unfeasible, or even a downright waste of time, but I was sure that it would contribute to the body of knowledge of the human sciences. After a day of bickering, our hypothesis read: "People who prefer to drink the popular soda Coca Cola, are more likely to drive cars manufactured by Toyota." I realize that this hypothesis is in no way serious, but for the purposes of a high school class, I felt it might be interesting to test if some correlation does exist between people’s car and soda preference.

This guiding statement led us to frame our survey questions, which read:

1. What is your favorite soft drink: Coke, Pepsi, Sierra Mist, Orange soda, Dr. Pepper, or Root Beer?

2. Which type of car do you drive: Toyota, Ford, GMC, Chrysler, VW, or Honda? (if you don’t drive, which would you be most likely to drive?)

We drafted these questions with careful regard to cultural biases to make them as balanced as possible (as balanced as possible for a high school student working at 12:20AM). In the interest of saving paper, we printed a sheet with the questions at the top of the page and lines on the other half for people to fill in their responses. The survey was completely anonymous. Just to satiate my avid readers’ curiosity, I will reveal that the survey data suggested that people who drink Sierra Mist are more likely to drive Toyotas.

However, this was not the result of the survey I was concerned with. As you know, our survey had a somewhat unique nature, because of which, we were able to come to two other conclusions. Although our survey specifically mentioned which brand of drink and car were acceptable choices to put down, we allowed the person to write in his response. Because of this, we were able to come to the conclusion that 5.6% of the sample group think they are funny. We were able to deduce this from the fact that said people put down sarcastic or potentially comical responses instead of selecting from the choices provided. For example, one person wrote that his most probable car would be the DeLorean from the 1985 movie Back to the Future. I’m sure the "car you drive" or the car you would be "most likely to drive" is a time-traveling vehicle that consumes 1.21 Gigawatts of power. Another person (and I use the term loosely), thought it would be hilarious to write "beer" as opposed to "root beer." Why don’t you tell that to somebody who cares? Oh wait, that raises the question of "who does care?" One would think the police, but even that’s dubious.

This segues perfectly into our more horrifying conclusion that a further 2.7% of the sample group can accurately be called "stupid." One person, in an obvious attempt to name his dream car, scrawled in the word "Porshe" then scratched it out. Yes, that’s right: P-o-r-s-h-e. If you can’t spell your dreams and aspirations correctly, good luck trying to achieve them, you idiot. I was astounded by yet another one of these walking vegetables who wrote that the car he drove was a "Suburu," spelled S-u-b-u-r-u. How do you misspell the name of a car if it’s blazoned across the steering wheel, interior trim, rear tailgate, and keychain of the car you sit in everyday and drive?

Everybody forget about obesity, we’re being overwhelmed by a new worldwide pandemic of stupidity. I’m going to stop typing this and watch Star Wars until I forget about these events.