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The plural of anecdotes is not data

Ben Goldacre

If I was writing a lifestyle book it would have the same advice on every page, and you’d know it all already.
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Book Real Writing
Real science is all about critically appraising the evidence for somebody else’s position.
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Inspiration Motivation Real
I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
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Bits Complicated Thinking
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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Coats Support White
I write about misuses of evidence in plenty of different spheres: scaremongering journalists, obvious quacks and naturopaths, and flaws in the way that evidence is used in mainstream academia, medicine and in (government) policy.
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Different Interesting Writing
I hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease
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Disease Stage Trials
Amazing things happen when you pull individual pieces of information together into larger linked datasets: meaning emerges, as you produce facts from figures.
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Facts Pieces Together
Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.
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Data Decision Doctors
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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Linking New Rule Source Transparently
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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Change Own Political Require
The plural of anecdotes is not data
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Anecdotes Data Plural
I agree, the world would be a better place if doctors were less enthusiastic about adopting very new drugs.
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Adopt Doctors Drugs Enthusiastic
Positive findings are around twice as likely to be published as negative findings. This is a cancer at the core of evidence-based medicine.
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Cancer Inspiration Motivation
You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
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Argument People Reason
One of the things I always found interesting is the same tricks are used to distort medicine in all of those domains.
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Interesting Medicine Trick
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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Blind Ideas Medicine Spots

The plural of anecdotes is not data

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The plural of anecdotes is not data

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