These are real questions that people have been thinking hard about, and finding solutions for, for centuries. It would be valuable to explore them, IMHO.
That's actually a good point. The spider people should have looked into this instead. Much better ROI if they could solve it. Maybe they could even incorporate jumping spiders somehow. It would be excellent marketing.
OK, so how can we analyze whether results are made up, partially made up, credible, etc.?
> you'd hate to be the guy who spends years studying spiders just to conclude that they're about as stupid as everyone thinks they are.
I'm sure people would hate to fund that too, or have their lab or university associated with it. How could they avoid it?