> I recall seeing some fairly befuddling ones, like "Study finds that being in a green environment with plants & flowers reduces depression" etc., how do you even quantify this into numbers?

"Effects of things on depression" doesn't seem like such a crazy thing to need to quantify.

> I tell you I feel good if there's more greenery in the city, you want proof to see "how" good before you build more parks?

A very disingenuous comparison, I think. There's a pretty big difference between that and "What is the effect of certain environmental stimuli during surgery"

I'd really rather not have surgeons explore this question on their own.

I don't disagree that we don't need nearly as much data on some things as others - but I do still want data supporting reasons to spend millions of public dollars.