X-Message-Number: 25807
From: 
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 09:30:59 EST
Subject: double blind etc

Joseph Morgan writes in part:
 

>The  current issue of Skeptics magazine has an article titled The 

Double-Blind  >Gaze for former holistic M.D. Steven Bratman.  Dr. Bratman now  
believes 
that >anything less than a randomized double-blind,  placebo-controlled trial 
of a medical >treatment is ineffective.   Confounding factors such as the 

placebo effect, the re->interpretation  effect, observer bias, natural course of
an illness, regression to the  >mean, and the study effect obscure the results 
of less rigorous tests to  both the >patients and the researchers.

>This seriously calls  into question almost all nutritional supplements and 
even what >constitutes  a healthy diet since none of these things have been 
rigorously  tested.
 
Sure. And and an immortality pill won't be proven until you have lived  
forever. And with the cryonics "experiment" almost everyone is in the control  
group.
 
Surprise--we have to make decisions without guarantees, and often with only  
flimsy facts. Doing nothing is also a decision, not necessarily the best  one.
 
If you were to totally ignore every hint, so long as it remains  only a hint 
or guess, then--surprise again--you never do anything, not even  a 

"scientific" test. Even a "test" is an investment, and an expensive one if it  
is full 
double-blind and a large study. Every proven discovery started out as a  mere 
hint or suggestion or guess or small sample. Less-than-perfect evidence is  
still evidence. 
 
It's the big picture, folks. You have to weigh the probable benefits  against 
the probable costs.
 
The biggest joke is the last line in the quotes above:
 
>This seriously calls into question almost all nutritional  supplements and 
even what >constitutes a healthy diet since none of these  things have been 
rigorously tested.  

Right. We do not have sufficiently rigorous studies of what constitutes a  
healthy diet. Does this mean we pig out whenever we feel like it?
 

 
Robert Ettinger 






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