Such a study might show that it doesn’t matter on average. But you’d need those numbers to see if it’s increasing the spread of values. That would mean that it really helps some and hurts others. If you can figure out which is which, then it’ll end up being useful. Heck, this applies even if the average effect is negative.
I don’t know how often bio-researchers treat the standard deviation as part of their signal. I suspect it’s infrequent.
How large was your prior for “insurance helps some and harms others, and we should try to figure out which is which” before that was one possible way of rescuing insurance from this study? That sort of argument is, I respectfully suggest, a warning signal which should make you consider whether your bottom line is already written.
I wasn’t even thinking of insurance here. You were talking about garlic. I was thinking about my physics experiments where the standard deviation is a very useful channel of information.
Such a study might show that it doesn’t matter on average. But you’d need those numbers to see if it’s increasing the spread of values. That would mean that it really helps some and hurts others. If you can figure out which is which, then it’ll end up being useful. Heck, this applies even if the average effect is negative.
I don’t know how often bio-researchers treat the standard deviation as part of their signal. I suspect it’s infrequent.
How large was your prior for “insurance helps some and harms others, and we should try to figure out which is which” before that was one possible way of rescuing insurance from this study? That sort of argument is, I respectfully suggest, a warning signal which should make you consider whether your bottom line is already written.
I wasn’t even thinking of insurance here. You were talking about garlic. I was thinking about my physics experiments where the standard deviation is a very useful channel of information.