Your objections would make sense if they were going to compare skimmers between groups - but all they are going to do is pick the one that works the best within a group in terms of skimmate. Then they are going to do the same for each group. Granted, it is a bit crude, but at least it is do-able. You would need siginificant funding and a huge lab to do a really sophisticated study, but all they are trying to say is which skimmer works better under those conditions.
They are going to have trouble if they just compare volume of skimmate, and it would be better if they actually analyzed the content.
But, in my hours on the web trying to find objective evidence of which skimmer works well or better than others, I have come up pretty empty. Do you know of any good trial between skimmers? If you read around it is pretty hard to do any better than subjective impressions. I would really like to read some harder data, and if you know of any, that would be really appreciated.
Almost all of the information on boards like this or others is someone saying "yeah, I used it - it (fill in the blank - rocks or sucks).
It does seem to be a group of friends having some fun, as you say. I don't think the results will be publishable in a scientific journal, but I think it will be quite interesting.
|