Junk Science and Quack Medicine

[Rhapsody]

We, yes WE know that Marcus actually loves things of no value. I'll ask Dr. Phil for clarifications.

[~]

[Marcus]

[I am ST]

[Marcus]

[Colonel Sun]

[~]

[~]

[Sparky]

[Colonel Sun]

[Colonel Sun]

[Tinker]

[~]

[Tinker]

Interesting that it brings rise to contempt from you.

I should think anyone with a passing familiarity with how difficult it is to assemble a particular study should not be surprised that a lot of studies are less rigourous than we might hope them to be. It happens. Particularly in the medical field where a lot of the work requires a subjective report from the patient. It's important to study this, to improve the way studies in medical journals get passed along.

[~]

"Contempt"?

The journalist missed what should be a central focus of his piece. I hope he didn't miss it in his book.

[Tinker]

I think he just assumed that his audience was aware of how medicalstudies are constructed. Studies are categorized by relative criteria, strong or weak sample sizes and all that.

[~]

Yeah... and p-values and Wald tests and chi squares and such.

[Tinker]

[~]

While that's pro forma in journalism, one would hope science strives to covariate itself above all that shit.
And unless Freedman's book makes a point to cover the metas of measurements and the increasing difficulty of asking well formed questions, his book may be metastasized by a lay public eager to bifurcate the babby with the bathwater...

[Colonel Sun]

It's an article in the general press, so I wouldn't read too much into it.

However, the most common problems in medical research are that

1/ n is to small. Biological systems have a notoriously large natural variability and the sample sizes for the control and experimental are typically too small.
The size of the groups is often limited by cost and the time taken to obtain such groups, for example, is a double blind drug study.

2/ the experimental design does not properly account for confounding effects other than the effect under study

[Colonel Sun]

Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbour.

~ Halpern's Dad

[noddy]

[Tinker]

[Tinker]

[Marcus]