Court forcing 16 yr old with cancer into chemo

[Alex]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

All one has to do is look at the increases in average life expectancy and it is relatively easy to attribute it to medical advances.

However, I have performed no double blind studies, so what do I know? (since this is in reply to Alex I'll refrain from posting a smilie.)

For the record, I don't attribute increased life expectancy purely to medical advances. I do attribute specific reductions in mortality to specific medical advances. There are many non-medical causes for our increased life expectancy.

Also to be clear, I am not claiming that all research on all topics needs to be double-blinded. That is obviously not the case. But most pharmaceutical and medical procedure research benefits greatly from it because perception biases so easily impact results and independent confirmation is generally not easily achieved.

(And I know your kidding around, but it is kidding around that parralels common failures in understanding of good methodology.)