You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
BEN GOLDACREI hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease
More Ben Goldacre Quotes
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I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
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I’ve detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don’t link to primary sources, I just don’t trust you.
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I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
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You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.
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Transparency and detail are everything in science.
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There is this peculiar blind spot in the culture of academic medicine around whether withholding trial results is research misconduct. People who work in any industry can reinforce each others’ ideas about what is okay.
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The plural of anecdotes is not data
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Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.
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Yes. I’m a doctor, an epidemiologist, and lots of my professional colleagues flip back and forth between industry and medical roles. I know them; they are not bad people. But it is possible for good people in bad systems to do things that inflict enormous harm.
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Data is the fabric of the modern world: just like we walk down pavements, so we trace routes through data, and build knowledge and products out of it.
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And if, by the end [of this book], you reckon you might still disagree with me, then I offer you this: you’ll still be wrong, but you’ll be wrong with a lot more panache and flair than you could possibly manage right now.
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I agree, the world would be a better place if doctors were less enthusiastic about adopting very new drugs.
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But as we will see, even these things are hard to do on your own, and in reality require wholesale social and political changes.
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Science has authority not because of white coats or titles, but because of precision and transparency: you explain your theory, set out your evidence, and reference the studies that support your case.
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There are many differences between medicine and teaching, but they have much in common. Both involve craft and personal expertise, learned through experience; but both can be informed by the experience of others.
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