Where did I state or imply that the results of a clinical trial are not evidence?
You certainly didn’t state it, but I got the impression that you don’t think you should pay much attention to clinical trials. Perhaps I inferred what wasn’t there.
but generally, failures to reject at 95% proves little.
If failure to reject the null hypothesis proves little, then you’re unlikely to reject it even if it’s false, which raises the question of why you did the study in the first place. You clearly should have made a big enough study to actually notice things.
Really? I can’t sleep. I take a pill, and I fall asleep. I don’t take a pill, and I don’t fall asleep. How many trials of that do you need to be convinced?
I guess in that case (and many others, such as pain relief) it would work. The example in the original comment was life extension, where it clearly would not. Even so, you could rely on studies to tell you how likely it is to work, and how well it will work if it does. You also can’t just rely on testing them yourself, given that only a tiny fraction of things help you sleep, but the same goes for studies.
You admit that you can’t find life extension solutions that way.
I meant that you can’t find them by testing them on yourself, since you can only do it once, unlike something to help you sleep. You can find them by clinical trials. You just saw an example of that.
You certainly didn’t state it, but I got the impression that you don’t think you should pay much attention to clinical trials. Perhaps I inferred what wasn’t there.
If failure to reject the null hypothesis proves little, then you’re unlikely to reject it even if it’s false, which raises the question of why you did the study in the first place. You clearly should have made a big enough study to actually notice things.
I guess in that case (and many others, such as pain relief) it would work. The example in the original comment was life extension, where it clearly would not. Even so, you could rely on studies to tell you how likely it is to work, and how well it will work if it does. You also can’t just rely on testing them yourself, given that only a tiny fraction of things help you sleep, but the same goes for studies.
I meant that you can’t find them by testing them on yourself, since you can only do it once, unlike something to help you sleep. You can find them by clinical trials. You just saw an example of that.