The argument that confused me at first was: “Wouldn’t the second researcher always be able to produce a >60% result given enough time and resources, no matter what the actual efficacy of the treatment is?”
But this is not true. If the true efficacy is < 60%, then the probability of observing a “>60%” result at least once in a sequence of N experiments does not tend to 1 as N goes to infinity.
The argument that confused me at first was: “Wouldn’t the second researcher always be able to produce a >60% result given enough time and resources, no matter what the actual efficacy of the treatment is?”
But this is not true. If the true efficacy is < 60%, then the probability of observing a “>60%” result at least once in a sequence of N experiments does not tend to 1 as N goes to infinity.