Hello, I am a hobbyist physics geek. Loving to try to find the answers to things myself, even if I could just Google on it. I try to figure it out, THEN Google on it and see what other folks have found. My little lab is full of enough Geiger counters, beakers, containers marked with warning symbols and such that it pretty well effectively keeps other folks away from that room! 
So, that ramble was an intro to an idea/question: how common is it for a solo researcher to try double-blinding themselves. I want to play with possible interactions between powerful magnets and plant growth. 1500+lb pull rare earth magnets and seed germination, early growth. I don't think it will make a difference, at least one that I'm capable of detecting, but I want to try for fun. So, I'm going to get like 6 little pots and try to set them up identically to each other with a good environment and healthy matching seeds. Obviously there are way too many variable here to truly compensate for in a little home geek-lair, but its the creating of a process and trying it that is the most fun for me.
So, my idea is - I will try to make the pots match each other so exactly that I can't tell from simple observation. With different stickers on the bottoms of them. With a couple of them growing in powerful magnetic fields. Have a friend mix them up for me, and then give them all water and sunlight for a few weeks and see what happens! Then do it all over a couple of times and see if any results, or lack of, are consistent/replicable.
Is this a common kind of process for research pro's to take part in, double-blinding themselves for an experiment?
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6 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button."... how common is it for a solo researcher to try double-blinding themselves."
I think the first eye would hurt so much you couldn't double blind yourself. 
AtheistInNC
Level 7
Jan 9, 2020
0
I have no idea how scientists set these things up.. but it sounds complicated enough to be.. ummm.. complicated enough.lol
Sorry..no help..but it sounds interesting.. spending weeks watching seeds grow in identical pots..some near strong magnets and some not.
Sounds like you have a lot of fun with your hobby!! Keep it up.
Davekp
Level 8
Dec 22, 2019
0
In large agricultural studies since it is difficult to control for sunlight and other geographic variables, a randomized block design is often used. If you are not doing it already, it would be a good idea to look it up.
Also, the double blind refers to neither the experimenter nor the experiment subject knowing their group identity, ie., control or not. In your case, I think it is more appropriate to say single blind study.
Spongebob
Level 7
Nov 9, 2019
1
Interesting idea. You are studying the effects of applied magnetic field on the growth of plants. I assume you are going to measure plant height after a certain duration. You will try to control for variations in potsize, sunlight, water, air flow etc which each plant receives. The uncontrolled variable that can affect your data significantly is the seed quality. You can minimize the effect of seed quality by randomly allocating the seeds to magnetic field /no field groups. If you can somehow visually distinguish the seed quality before the experiment, you are succeptible to bias and blind study would be a good idea. However, if you can make the distinction in seed quality, why not choose only one kind of seed quality for the whole experiment? This would limit the generation of your results but it would be more reliable as your population variance would be lower. If you can't distinguish the seed quality before the experiment, what sort of bias would be controlled by using a blind design?
Spongebob
Level 7
Nov 9, 2019
2
Ah yes - single blind, duh. Thank you! As I mentioned in there, the variables here are far too big for me to compensate for in a home workshop. But I can at least strive to have them all start in the same state, and grow in the same environment. But the huge variable I cannot even slightly compensate for, when dealing with small sample sizes, is simple genetics. There are going to be differences in growth between any two seeds I can get my hands on. But - the process here is the main fun.
To give a context to what silly science I do . . . it has often been things like irradiating beer, to see if it gets changed noticeably. Am I likely to actually notice anything? No, but just for the fun of being able know that perhaps I'm the only person to have ever purposely hit baklava with a bunch of gamma radiation. Do neutrons pass more easily through a raw or boiled egg? We would we need to know? We don't, but it fun and at the very least it terrifies friends and family! **Note: its all actually done safely, but Americans with the word "radiation"?! Most often there hasn't been much study of the subject, not their faults.
Its just fun to hack together tests on a poor geeks budget! Legos for grownups.
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