Suppose you ask several experts how to choose a good car. Their answers reveal they don’t know how to drive. What should you conclude? Suppose these experts build cars. Should we trust the cars they’ve built?
Gina Kolata writes that “experts agree that there are three basic principles that underlie the search for medical truth and the use of clinical trials to obtain it.” Kolata’s “three basic principles” reveal that her experts don’t understand experimentation.
Principle 1. “It is important to compare like with like. The groups you are comparing must be the same except for one factor — the one you are studying. For example, you should compare beta carotene users with people who are exactly like the beta carotene users except that they don’t take the supplement.” An expert told her this. This — careful equation of two groups — is not how experiments are done. What is done is random assignment, which roughly (but not perfectly) equates the groups on pre-experimental characteristics. A more subtle point is that the X versus No X design is worse than a design that compares different dosages of X. The latter design makes it less likely that control subjects will get upset because they didn’t get X and makes the two groups more equal.
Principle 2. “The bigger the group studied, the more reliable the conclusions.” Again, this is not what happens. No one with statistical understanding judges the reliability of an effect by the size of the experiment; they judge it by the p value (which takes account of sample size). The more subtle point is that the smaller the sample size, the stronger the effect must be to get reliable results. Researchers try to conserve resources so they try to keep experiments as small as possible. Small experiments with reliable results are more impressive than large experiments with equally reliable results — because the effect must be stronger. This is basically the opposite of what Kolata says.
Principle 3. In the words of Kolata’s expert, it’s “Bayes theorem”. He means consider other evidence — evidence from other studies. This is not only banal, it is meaningless. It is unclear — at least from what Kolata writes — how to weigh the various sources of evidences (what if the other evidence and the clinical trials disagree?).
Kolata also quotes David Freedman, a Berkeley professor of statistics who knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Perhaps it starts in medical school. As I blogged, working scientists, who have a clue, don’t want to teach medical students how to do research.
If this is the level of understanding of the people who do clinical trials, how much should we trust them? Presumably Kolata’s experts were better than average — a scary thought.
Suppose you ask several experts how to choose a good car. Their answers reveal they don’t know how to drive. What should you conclude? Suppose these experts build cars. Should we trust the cars they’ve built?
Gina Kolata writes that “experts agree that there are three basic principles that underlie the search for medical truth and the use of clinical trials to obtain it.” Kolata’s “three basic principles” reveal that her experts don’t understand experimentation.
Principle 1. “It is important to compare like with like. The groups you are comparing must be the same except for one factor — the one you are studying. For example, you should compare beta carotene users with people who are exactly like the beta carotene users except that they don’t take the supplement.” An expert told her this. This — careful equation of two groups — is not how experiments are done. What is done is random assignment, which roughly (but not perfectly) equates the groups on pre-experimental characteristics. A more subtle point is that the X versus No X design is worse than a design that compares different dosages of X. The latter design makes it less likely that control subjects will get upset because they didn’t get X and makes the two groups more equal.
Principle 2. “The bigger the group studied, the more reliable the conclusions.” Again, this is not what happens. No one with statistical understanding judges the reliability of an effect by the size of the experiment; they judge it by the p value (which takes account of sample size). The more subtle point is that the smaller the sample size, the stronger the effect must be to get reliable results. Researchers try to conserve resources so they try to keep experiments as small as possible. Small experiments with reliable results are more impressive than large experiments with equally reliable results — because the effect must be stronger. This is basically the opposite of what Kolata says.
Principle 3. In the words of Kolata’s expert, it’s “Bayes theorem”. He means consider other evidence — evidence from other studies. This is not only banal, it is meaningless. It is unclear — at least from what Kolata writes — how to weigh the various sources of evidences (what if the other evidence and the clinical trials disagree?).
Kolata also quotes David Freedman, a Berkeley professor of statistics who knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Perhaps it starts in medical school. As I blogged, working scientists, who have a clue, don’t want to teach medical students how to do research.
If this is the level of understanding of the people who do clinical trials, how much should we trust them? Presumably Kolata’s experts were better than average — a scary thought.