Drug results and correlation studies, both environmental and genetic, mostly. Which should be high enough volume that the “at least a high percentage” part should be true even if you add more reliable types of research, no? Or is medical science the wrong word for the category that includes both?
Or is medical science the wrong word for the category that includes both?
I do think so. A lot of pre-clinical medical science is more about understanding specific mechanism, not looking at correlations and mapping out risk factors.
Drug results and correlation studies, both environmental and genetic, mostly,
Do you have some data?
I do agree that it’s hard to actually learn something solid from epidemiology, biology is complicated and factors do not usually add in any intuitive way. But then there are categories where epidemiology is invaluable take for example people with hereditary colon cancer where the majority (with a specific set of mutations) get colon cancer. But you might be right that a lot is not really useful information . . .
I do think so. A lot of pre-clinical medical science is more about understanding specific mechanism, not looking at correlations and mapping out risk factors.
I didn’t necessarily mean to exclude things like that, just to include both of the categories mentioned.
Of course there is data. Besides the Ionnidis citations in the linked article, I also linked my previous post on the topic which, among other things, links to my section in the DNB FAQ on this topic with dozens of links/citations.
One study, for instance, analyzed 432 different claims of genetic links for various health risks that vary between men and women. Only one of these claims proved to be consistently replicable. Another meta review, meanwhile, looked at the 49 most-cited clinical research studies published between 1990 and 2003. Most of these were the culmination of years of careful work. Nevertheless, more than 40 percent of them were later shown to be either totally wrong or significantly incorrect.
Those didn’t analyze all of medicine, of course, but it does sound pretty bad for the overall percentage.
Drug results and correlation studies, both environmental and genetic, mostly. Which should be high enough volume that the “at least a high percentage” part should be true even if you add more reliable types of research, no? Or is medical science the wrong word for the category that includes both?
How much is a high percentage?
I do think so. A lot of pre-clinical medical science is more about understanding specific mechanism, not looking at correlations and mapping out risk factors.
Do you have some data? I do agree that it’s hard to actually learn something solid from epidemiology, biology is complicated and factors do not usually add in any intuitive way. But then there are categories where epidemiology is invaluable take for example people with hereditary colon cancer where the majority (with a specific set of mutations) get colon cancer. But you might be right that a lot is not really useful information . . .
Let’s say more than 20%
I didn’t necessarily mean to exclude things like that, just to include both of the categories mentioned.
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124
Of course there is data. Besides the Ionnidis citations in the linked article, I also linked my previous post on the topic which, among other things, links to my section in the DNB FAQ on this topic with dozens of links/citations.
My bad, only browsed through “Why Science Is Failing Us”, behaved kind of like a politician, will do my homework before opening my mouth next time.
But I still think that one should use medical epidemiology instead of the cluster word medical science.
From the article:
Those didn’t analyze all of medicine, of course, but it does sound pretty bad for the overall percentage.