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Science: Observe. Generate hypothesis. Design experiment(s) that would invalidate hypothesis. Test. Evaluate. Repeat as needed. Apply, and measure effectiveness

• taneq 10y ago
  Things which assert credibility by claiming that they're "proven" are some of the worst. Sadly there's no real way to know the difference other than having a scientific background and examining the actual research.
• didibus 10y ago
  The belief that proven exists is the bigger problem. Things are proven mathematically within a single model, nothing in reality is proven. There is only a scale from models that are more useful and likely to give us what we want, and models that are less likely. But, things can be disproved. So if we have a single case against a model, we know it does not hold 100%. The model is then insufficient. In that sense, we need to know: are the medicinal models presented to us known to not be the most useful and likely to help us? If they're not, then they're still valuable, and we should be happy that we're improving them at a high pace, giving us the impression previous models were wrong, yet models are not wrong, just less useful and likely to help us, but if it was still the best we had, your chances were still better following it.
  • bjt2n3904 10y ago
    > Things are proven mathematically within a single model, nothing in reality is proven. Preach it didibus! So few people understand this!
  • wott 10y ago
    "But it's been proved by research on neurosciences" claimed by psychologists/sociologists/economists is one of my favourites of the moment.
• AndrewKemendo 10y ago
  Design experiment(s) that would invalidate hypothesis. This is the sticking point with nutrition and medical studies though. With the existence of IRB's and medical ethics practices, it's challenging and best and impossible at worst to run medical experiments up to scientific standards. Maybe rightly so, but it does put handcuffs on the ability to do hypothesis based testing for nutrition.
  • savanaly 10y ago
    Same reason economists have such a hard time making robust theories.
    • civility 10y ago
      Same reason paleontology, geology, anthropology, climate science, astronomy, and so on have a difficult time... Any theory that can't be falsified by running an experiment shouldn't be called "science". At best, people pick the theories they believe because they "fit" existing observations, not because it's good science. (No computer models really aren't good enough - you have to ask whether the model was correct and included all the important components)
  • mattkrause 10y ago
    I really don't think that IRBs/ethics committees are the major problem in biomedical research. Interacting with them can be frustrating and annoying, but the issues were largely bureaucratic ones (so many forms and approvals). I've never felt like their requests were unreasonable or that they compromised the research. On the other hand, the continual pressure to publish "complete" stories, early and often, absolutely affects the quality of research and I think finding ways to realign researchers' incentives would be awesome.
• agumonkey 10y ago
  I despised medicine for the feel of butchery I have when looking at surgery. That said, humans are "complex", and sadly, ethics forbid experiments to validate anything most of the time. Slow it will be.