The 2011 Ng and Cohen Candy Hierarchy

Where does the candy you'll give to trick-or-treaters rank among internet users? Science writers David Ng and Ben Cohen put together a candy hierarchy lastyear and received a lot of feedback. They took those opinions into account when publishing their 2011 Candy Hierarchy. Some of the findings:

(1) That despite various lobbying efforts, clear consensus within the peer review process was wholly absent. No agreement on any specific candy was represented higher than 5% of the total comments (although status of fresh versus stale versus fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls was especially hotly debated). Indeed, consensus was only noted in the following: that last year’s hierarchy, in a word, sucked. In fact, the word “travesty” and similar synonyms were uttered more than a few times (Koerth-Baker, 2010).

(2) That with current data, Candy Corn is impossible to rank. It is liken to the “String Theory” of candy: largely theoretical nature and difficult to pin down. In the hopes of moving forward on this strange phenomenon, we are currently exploring a grant proposal that would give us time on the LHC.

(3) That this study was a great portal to science culture in general. This was demonstrated by an example of scientific plagiarism (link), as well as the prevalence of scientist bias, because despite repeated commentary on the contrary, we stubbornly stand by our evaluation of Whoppers.

Of course, the new hierarchy, published at Boing Boing, has already sparked a debate over the merits of a certain American brand of chocolate. Link