This is actually quite a common attitude toward science

On Christmas morning, Scarlett Doumato took a break from playing with her new toys, marched into the kitchen, returned with plastic bags and started collecting evidence — the half-eaten Oreo and a pair of munched-on carrots she’d left for Santa and his reindeer the night before.

Scarlett, a 10-year-old from Cumberland, R.I., could see teeth marks in both. But neither she nor her parents could prove that the person who ate the cookie was Santa or that the reindeer were the ones that chomped on the baby carrots.

Scarlett decided to call for backup.

A few days later, the fourth-grader sent the evidence she’d collected to local police with a letter explaining her investigative methodology and what she was trying to find out: “Dear Cumberland Police department, I took a sample of a cookie and carrots that I left for Santa and the raindeer on christmas eve and was wondering if you could take a sample of DNA and see if Santa is real?”

Here is the full story by Jonathan Edwards, via the excellent Kevin Lewis.