Credit: Anne Devan-Song CORVALLIS, Ore. - Research by a graduate student in Oregon State University's College of Science has upended the conventional wisdom that for a century has incorrectly guided the study of a toad listed as endangered in part of its range. Anne Devan-Song used spotlighting - shining a light in a dark spot and looking for eye reflections - to find large numbers of the eastern spadefoot toad. The study illustrates how confirmation bias - a tendency to interpret new information as ratification of existing theories - can hamper discovery and the development of better ones. Her findings, which show that the toad spends much more time above ground than commonly believed, were published in the