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This is, if you will, a very germ-theoretic perspective. Why would you notice, by eye, this correlation and not that one? More importantly, why would you collec

This is, if you will, a very germ-theoretic perspective. Why would you notice, by eye, this correlation and not that one? More importantly, why would you collect these data rather than those? Scientific paradigms are "nefarious" because they control experimental design, so unparadigmatic data only come about by accident. And accidental results are often as not a flaw in the design or instrumentation, or else "noise."

adrianN 9y ago
Of course it's easier if you have a viable theory to deduce efficient treatments. But the correlation between hand washing and medical outcome was noticed before germ theory, this is why I mentioned it. It didn't become popular until later though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
- colorint 9y ago
  Fair enough, and that guy's work was pretty close (in time) to the "germ revolution." The accounting of scientific revolutions is that anomalous results start getting common enough that people get uncomfortable calling them noise or faulty methodology. I'm not an expert in the history of paradigms of disease, but these results coming out were almost certainly part of what chipped away faith in miasma theory and, if you will, created the unease required for revolution. Importantly, Semmelweis couldn't offer an explanation for why washing hands helped, which seems to have greatly hindered his credibility. I said you were offering a germ-theoretic perspective, because we do (and must do) the same thing: How else should we separate the spurious correlations from the important ones? How do we separate superstition from good practice? How do we tell the crackpots from the creative? If we suspend the germ theory, what if there was something else going on at the hospital, and hand-washing was just something this guy noticed and latched on to? Then you'd be giving people the wrong advice---which is, after all, one of many reasons that correlation is not causation.

adrianN 9y ago

Of course it's easier if you have a viable theory to deduce efficient treatments. But the correlation between hand washing and medical outcome was noticed before germ theory, this is why I mentioned it. It didn't become popular until later though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

colorint 9y ago
Fair enough, and that guy's work was pretty close (in time) to the "germ revolution." The accounting of scientific revolutions is that anomalous results start getting common enough that people get uncomfortable calling them noise or faulty methodology. I'm not an expert in the history of paradigms of disease, but these results coming out were almost certainly part of what chipped away faith in miasma theory and, if you will, created the unease required for revolution. Importantly, Semmelweis couldn't offer an explanation for why washing hands helped, which seems to have greatly hindered his credibility. I said you were offering a germ-theoretic perspective, because we do (and must do) the same thing: How else should we separate the spurious correlations from the important ones? How do we separate superstition from good practice? How do we tell the crackpots from the creative? If we suspend the germ theory, what if there was something else going on at the hospital, and hand-washing was just something this guy noticed and latched on to? Then you'd be giving people the wrong advice---which is, after all, one of many reasons that correlation is not causation.