A small investigational drug trial won’t be powered to detect outliers, and you won’t be able to reliably solve that by invoking Bayesian statistics.
I think in the hypothetical he meant you’ve already won the lottery, so to speak.
The whole “medical doctors can always consistently treat medical diseases, but psychiatrists are throwing darts blindfolded” story is something of a myth
I agree, too bad for the patients who actually need help that the myth is alive and well. Psychiatry allows for this blind folded dart throwing more though since there are no simple tests, and people might be judging the whole field based on a few incompetent individuals or psychotherapy forms that have stuck for historical reasons. I don’t think you can directly compare medications to make the point like they did in that paper, since drugs make up a smaller fraction of psychiatrists’ treatment arsenal. Correct me if it’s different in the US.
(Take psychodynamic psychotherapy for example and see how popular it is for whatever reason. I doubt you’ll find such a popular rotten corpse in medicine.)I was wrong about this one apparently, thanks Yvain. If you do, I suppose it would be some surgical technique. Both psychotherapy and surgery require training so there are greater sunk costs involved.
Psychotherapy seems to work pretty well, and it’s not obvious that psychodynamic psychotherapy works less well than other sorts. See http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/09/19/scientific-freud/ . I prefer things more in the CBT vein myself, but the pro-psychodynamics people aren’t as helpless and discredited as one might think.
Thanks. Another myth, huh. This one is widespread even amongst medical professionals. Now I wonder what other myths I’ve accepted without questioning. If your blog contains more debunking of medical debunking, some pointers would be nice.
This OB article you linked to seems like a useful generalized explanation for why these kinds of myths happen. I agree many doctors seem to make that mistake, which is concerning because this is a really stupid one.
I think in the hypothetical he meant you’ve already won the lottery, so to speak.
I agree, too bad for the patients who actually need help that the myth is alive and well. Psychiatry allows for this blind folded dart throwing more though since there are no simple tests, and people might be judging the whole field based on a few incompetent individuals or psychotherapy forms that have stuck for historical reasons. I don’t think you can directly compare medications to make the point like they did in that paper, since drugs make up a smaller fraction of psychiatrists’ treatment arsenal. Correct me if it’s different in the US.
(Take psychodynamic psychotherapy for example and see how popular it is for whatever reason. I doubt you’ll find such a popular rotten corpse in medicine.) I was wrong about this one apparently, thanks Yvain. If you do, I suppose it would be some surgical technique. Both psychotherapy and surgery require training so there are greater sunk costs involved.
Psychotherapy seems to work pretty well, and it’s not obvious that psychodynamic psychotherapy works less well than other sorts. See http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/09/19/scientific-freud/ . I prefer things more in the CBT vein myself, but the pro-psychodynamics people aren’t as helpless and discredited as one might think.
Thanks. Another myth, huh. This one is widespread even amongst medical professionals. Now I wonder what other myths I’ve accepted without questioning. If your blog contains more debunking of medical debunking, some pointers would be nice.
This OB article you linked to seems like a useful generalized explanation for why these kinds of myths happen. I agree many doctors seem to make that mistake, which is concerning because this is a really stupid one.