Results for: bayesian
On the “individualization” of treatments in “alternative medicine,” revisited
As I contemplated what I’d like to write about for the first post of 2012, I happened to come across a post by former regular and now occasional SBM contributor Peter Lipson entitled Another crack at medical cranks. In it, Dr. Lipson discusses one characteristic that allows medical cranks and quacks to attract patients, namely the ability to make patients feel wanted,...
Dummy Medicine, Dummy Doctors, and a Dummy Degree, Part 2.2: Harvard Medical School and the Curious Case of Ted Kaptchuk, OMD (cont. again)
“Strong Medicine”: Ted Kaptchuk and the Powerful Placebo At the beginning of the first edition of The Web that has no Weaver, published in 1983, author Ted Kaptchuk portended his eventual academic interest in the placebo: A story is told in China about a peasant who had worked as a maintenance man in a newly established Western missionary hospital. When he retired...
The Value of Replication
Daryl Bem is a respected psychology researcher who decided to try his hand at parapsychology. Last year he published a series of studies in which he claimed evidence for precognition — for test subjects being influenced in their choices by future events. The studies were published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. This created somewhat of...
Cochrane is Starting to ‘Get’ SBM!
This essay is the latest in the series indexed at the bottom.* It follows several (nos. 10-14) that responded to a critique by statistician Stephen Simon, who had taken issue with our asserting an important distinction between Science-Based Medicine (SBM) and Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM). (Dr. Gorski also posted a response to Dr. Simon’s critique). A quick-if-incomplete Review can be found here. One...
Of SBM and EBM Redux. Part IV, Continued: More Cochrane and a little Bayes
OK, I admit that I pulled a fast one. I never finished the last post as promised, so here it is. Cochrane Continued In the last post I alluded to the 2006 Cochrane Laetrile review, the conclusion of which was: This systematic review has clearly identified the need for randomised or controlled clinical trials assessing the effectiveness of Laetrile or amygdalin for...
The NCCAM Strategic Plan 2011-2015: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
The NCCAM has a new strategic plan that involves funding good science on meaningful topics, which is good. But it's still talking about nonsense like reiki, which is bad, and mixing it with real, scientifically proven treatments, which is ugly.
Of SBM and EBM Redux. Part IV: More Cochrane and a little Bayes
NB: This is a partial posting; I was up all night ‘on-call’ and too tired to continue. I’ll post the rest of the essay later… Review This is the fourth and final part of a series-within-a-series* inspired by statistician Steve Simon. Professor Simon had challenged the view, held by several bloggers here at SBM, that Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) has been mostly inadequate...
Of SBM and EBM Redux. Part II: Is it a Good Idea to test Highly Implausible Health Claims?
Review This is the second post in a series* prompted by an essay by statistician Stephen Simon, who argued that Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is not lacking in the ways that we at Science-Based Medicine have argued. David Gorski responded here, and Prof. Simon responded to Dr. Gorski here. Between that response and the comments following Dr. Gorski’s post it became clear to...
Of SBM and EBM Redux. Part I: Does EBM Undervalue Basic Science and Overvalue RCTs?
During the most recent kerfuffle about whether or not Evidence-Based Medicine can legitimately claim to be science-based medicine, it became clear to me that a whole, new round of discussion and documentation is necessary. This is frustrating because I’ve already done it several times, most recently less than a year ago. Moreover, I’ve provided a table of links to the whole series...