Vaccination & epidemic

[Undertoad]

Anyway, Tony. You decided to pick shit and ask what kind of degree jinx has, when you know good and goddamn well that she has none.

Not only did I not know, I said that I didn't know, directly, in my question.

Here are the words I actually used:

"I honestly don't know."

I didn't know. Honestly. Which is kind of a testament to her, in a way.

And you asked that question with the intent of invalidating her qualification to offer advice or cast judgement on this topic.

YES I DID, AND I WOULD ALWAYS DO SO. It's highly relevant to our discussion, and you know it. It doesn't make her less of a person, doesn't mean she's not whip-smart, doesn't mean she couldn't be right, and BTW, it doesn't address you AT ALL.

I'm very smart, studied STEM fields at a highly competitive college, and I CANNOT EASILY READ MEDICAL STUDIES. It's a long hard slog. For one thing, understanding those studies pretty much requires a deep understanding of statistics, which is coursework I've never had.

I never attacked you. In fact I laced my posts with compliments to you. I truly think you are a better person than I am, and I will say so. You have done more for this world than I have, including raising two awesome and, yes, healthy kids.

But in this thread you created an emotional minefield where every step someone took became an attack on you. Make a dum analogy? That's a personal attack on you. Make a smarter one? That's an attack too. Question - not even attack - the stbx wife? That's somehow an attack on you. STAHP!

Don't take this post as an attack: it's easy, because it isn't, unless I think it is; and I am saying it isn't; and as we are friends, I hope you will take me at my word.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I'm very smart, studied STEM fields at a highly competitive college, and I CANNOT EASILY READ MEDICAL STUDIES.

It's even tougher when the studies are bullshit.

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's even tougher when the studies are bullshit.

There's definitely a hierarchy of journals. Some (many) aren't worth reading and don't even show up on good database searches. You want peer-reviewed journals that have tough standards - The New England Journal of Medicine; Science; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - stuff like that.

Even then, I was taught both in my science degree and in my medical training to NOT read the discussion/conclusions until I'd studied the results for myself. Sometimes authors come to the wrong conclusion, or they miss something that's there in the data. It happens every so often. And you do need formal education in statistics and epidemiology to understand clinical and many other types of medical studies. I couldn't understand medical studies at a time when I could understand any scientific/lab bench paper. It's information - you need to know how the authors are treating the data: what's significant and what's not. And you need to understand study types and error and be able to see where a study is weak, maybe too weak in design to support any conclusion.

[xoxoxoBruce]

With seven or eight million researchers in the US, limited funds, a publish or perish system, and a serious decline in peer review, the temptation to fake it, or at least twist it, is huge. I read some numbers the other day about big pharma trying to replicate results of promising studies are having a dismal success rate.

Here are some reasons.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

With seven or eight million researchers in the US, limited funds,
a publish or perish system, and a serious decline in peer review, [COLOR="DarkRed"
the temptation to fake it, or at least twist it, is huge[/color].
I read some numbers the other day about big pharma trying to replicate results
of promising studies are having a dismal success rate.

Here are some reasons.

My first impulse is to ask if we should compare xoB's "temptations" among scientific researchers
with the "temptations" of, say, auto mechanics or salesmen or ...

But aside from such silliness as my impulse, my next one was to question
why advance a "fake it or twist it" condemnation from that link.
It's not really a significant part of the article.
The article talks about several other factors and influences that
come to bear on "replication".

I think it is a reasonably good article, talking about several different
real world issues that researchers face. But many of them are quite
similar to the issues that manufacturers face... similar to proprietary secrets,
little interest from funding agencies for "confirming-type" studies,
etc.

Although the authors seem particularly interested in the idea
that research is not self-correcting, there is de facto evidence that it is.

When there is "competition" between research centers, and/or collaboration on projects,
or the reputations of the investigators, and especially if an individual's career
and/or continued funding, etc. on the line... something that is
non-reproducible becomes evident and controlling.

One thing I (did not see in the article) is a review of the actions
and the lengths to which institutions will go to protect their own reputations
if/when even hints of "falsification" some into play. They usually make it into the lay press.