For nearly a century the so-called “Hawthorne Effect” has been Holy Writ in industrial sociology. It’s based on experiments conducted at the Hawthorne plant in 1924 in which two investigators studied the effect of changes in lighting conditions on the productivity of workers making telephone parts. The observers noted that no matter whether lighting was increased or dimmed, productivity went up — and concluded that it was the fact that the workers knew they were being experimented upon that explained it. (A kind of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle for social scientists, perhaps.) But now it appears that all that may have been hooey. Here’s what a fascinating article in this week’s Economist reports:

The data from the illumination experiments had never been rigorously analysed and were believed lost. But Steven Levitt and John List, two economists at the University of Chicago, discovered that the data had survived the decades in two archives in Milwaukee and Boston, and decided to subject them to econometric analysis. The Hawthorne experiments had another surprise in store for them. Contrary to the descriptions in the literature, they found no systematic evidence that levels of productivity in the factory rose whenever changes in lighting were implemented.

It turns out that idiosyncrasies in the way the experiments were conducted may have led to misleading interpretations of what happened. For example, lighting was always changed on a Sunday, when the plant was closed. When it reopened on Monday, output duly rose compared with Saturday, the last working day before the change, and continued to rise for the next couple of days. But a comparison with data for weeks when there was no experimentation showed that output always went up on Mondays. Workers tended to beaver away for the first few days of the working week in any case, before hitting a plateau and then slackening off.

Sigh. Yet another example of what TH Huxley described as “the slaughter of a beautiful theory by an ugly fact”.

Google’s front page this morning.

News from Matt about latest developments in 10 Downing Street.

Thanks to Pete for spotting it.

“History is shaped by coercion and ideas, and of those ideas are probably the most important.”

Berkeley political scientist Steve Weber, in conversation.

A few years ago, at the height of the Celtic Tiger’s roaring progress, I attended the First Communion of one of my nieces. The occasion provided a useful insight into the extremes of conspicious consumption that credit-fuelled affluence had induced in my fellow-countrymen (and women). Now comes an interesting, er, confirmation that these excesses haven’t yet been extinguished by the recession.

TWO CO LOUTH priests have taken drastic measures to ensure the worst excesses of the boom don’t creep back into a weekend Confirmation ceremony.

Fr David Bradley and Fr Tony Gonoude have written to parents of children taking the sacrament in the Church of the Holy Family in Drogheda tomorrow with a list of rules and regulations that must be adhered to during the ceremony.

The rules are being introduced so the ceremony is not “ruined”, the letter states.

The 10-point list of conditions tells parents not to arrive in stretched limousines or horse-drawn carriages, as has happened in the past, because of the demand for parking. Instead, they are advised to make a donation to a local homeless charity or women’s aid centre.

In the letter – sent home with schoolchildren earlier this week – the priests said that “going on past experience, sometimes guests or extended family that the young people have with them attending the ceremony can absolutely ruin the whole ceremony”.

Parents are asked to arrive at least 10 minutes before the 11am start time and to switch off their mobile phones before entering the church.

Chewing gum is not allowed during the ceremony as it is “both disrespectful and bad manners”.

No standing is allowed in the porches or at the back of the doors during Mass.

Moreover, anybody leaving the church during the ceremony without good reason “will not be allowed back into the church until Mass is finished”…

… in 1953, Everest was conquered as Edmund Hillary and sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to reach the summit.

I’m not a football fan, but if you read British newspapers it’s impossible to avoid the subject. Tucked away in the avalanche of lachrymose coverage of Newcastle United’s relegation from the Premiership I found a fascinating factoid which captures the essence of the economic lunacy of the football business: Newcastle has 15 players earning more than £50,000 a week; and none of their contracts has a relegation clause. To my (non-lawyer’s) mind, this sounds as though the club is committed to paying them even though it’s now lost the television income that makes such crazy remuneration possible.

Then came Wednesday evening and Barcelona’s delightful victory over Manchester United. For me, the most interesting comparison lay in the two team’s shirts. Note the main logo on the Barcelona kit:

It turns out that Barcelona gives £12 million to Unicef every year. That’s right: gives.

Compare this with Manchester United’s kit:

The club’s main corporate sponsor is the insurance company at the heart of the banking meltdown — the one that had to be rescued by the US government. Tells you everything you need to know about the English Premiership, really.

LATER: Dave Boyle (Whom God Preserve) emailed to alert me to Dave Conn’s fine article in the Guardian. Excerpt:

Manchester United versus Barcelona is a dream final for the romantic, two great clubs sharing traditions of skill and panache – yet the broader values they embody seem now to spring from opposing visions of the sport. On one side of Stadio Olimpico tomorrow will be Barça, “mes que un club” – more than a club – as the Catalan institution proclaims itself, bearing Unicef on the shirts, owned by 163,000 members. On the other will stand the famous Man United, soaked in history and tradition with AIG, the ultimate symbol of reckless financial speculation on their chests, and owned by the Glazers.

The contrasts appear so clear as to be blinding. Barça, who cannot be bought and whose president must stand for election by the fans; United, taken over against the wishes of the fans and the board itself by the Glazer family, who have loaded the club with around £700m of debt and own it, via a thicket of companies, in the low-tax US state of Nevada. Barça, flagbearers for the idea that a football club is a home of belonging; United, epitomising the English belief that the free market, and billionaires, must rule even sport.

Barcelona’s vice-president Alfons Godall, who fought the campaign with Joan Laporta democratically to oppose the old president, joined the board after Laporta’s 2003 election. He maintains the club’s reality is as virtuous as it will appear on the surface tomorrow. “I believe ours is the best model, an example to England,” Godall says. “We are free. We do not depend on a Mr Abramovich. We want to be successful but also to have meaning, social values. I am sure fans of Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal would like to be in our situation. But they have passed the point of no return; they are customers, not members.”