4 ms·

In the case of at least medicine, there is another degree of hardness involved: sample size. While in physics, for example, sample size is limited by cost, spac

In the case of at least medicine, there is another degree of hardness involved: sample size. While in physics, for example, sample size is limited by cost, space or, in few cases, frequency of occurrence, in medicine, a lot of studies are limited in size because of ethics. Many studies, especially drug trials, have an risk for at least one group. It is unethical to put more people at risk then absolutely needed, so studies are normally designed so that signal-to-noise is the minimal viable.

ekianjo 9y ago
not jusT ethics. Cost is a huge factor as well for clinical trials.
- whatshisface 9y ago
  Cost is a factor for sample size in any field: but physicists don't publish if they can't accumulate a sufficient sample. As a result physics experiments where sufficient sample sizes can't be obtained are, simply, never performed - and as a result physics as a field grows in the direction of high-certianty. Physicsts absolutely could be performing experiments with poorer statistics; it'd be cheaper, more advanced things would be done sooner, and we'd be having a replication crisis. If the social sciences were willing to go a century without discovering anything exciting, they could achieve whatever level of certianty they wanted on their current budget. (At the expense of new discoveries.)
  - magicalist 9y ago
    > but physicists don't publish if they can't accumulate a sufficient sample What? I would say most published physics is speculative models based on under-sampled phenomena (and that's ignoring the whole explicitly theoretical branches...). You could argue the practitioners tend to be more realistic about the chance of their models being valid, but this comment still ends up a bit masturbatory.
  - mathattack 9y ago
    High certainty but that comes with second order issues: many ideas are untested, and the ideas that are turn into papers with 100s of authors. This stifles independent thinking.
    - whatshisface 9y ago
      Here's a modern experimental paper. Scroll down to the authors. You'll know it when you see it. https://cds.cern.ch/record/2282544/files/arXiv:1709.05260.pdf https://cds.cern.ch/record/2282544/files/arXiv:1709.05260.pd... Your statement about huge numbers of authors (as well as the great number of theoretical papers that have to wait a very long time before being confirmed or denied) is true.
      - geezerjay 9y ago
        Wow the word-per-author ratio is close to 1. What's behind this padding?

ekianjo 9y ago

not jusT ethics. Cost is a huge factor as well for clinical trials.

whatshisface 9y ago
Cost is a factor for sample size in any field: but physicists don't publish if they can't accumulate a sufficient sample. As a result physics experiments where sufficient sample sizes can't be obtained are, simply, never performed - and as a result physics as a field grows in the direction of high-certianty. Physicsts absolutely could be performing experiments with poorer statistics; it'd be cheaper, more advanced things would be done sooner, and we'd be having a replication crisis. If the social sciences were willing to go a century without discovering anything exciting, they could achieve whatever level of certianty they wanted on their current budget. (At the expense of new discoveries.)
- magicalist 9y ago
  > but physicists don't publish if they can't accumulate a sufficient sample What? I would say most published physics is speculative models based on under-sampled phenomena (and that's ignoring the whole explicitly theoretical branches...). You could argue the practitioners tend to be more realistic about the chance of their models being valid, but this comment still ends up a bit masturbatory.
- mathattack 9y ago
  High certainty but that comes with second order issues: many ideas are untested, and the ideas that are turn into papers with 100s of authors. This stifles independent thinking.
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Here's a modern experimental paper. Scroll down to the authors. You'll know it when you see it. https://cds.cern.ch/record/2282544/files/arXiv:1709.05260.pdf https://cds.cern.ch/record/2282544/files/arXiv:1709.05260.pd... Your statement about huge numbers of authors (as well as the great number of theoretical papers that have to wait a very long time before being confirmed or denied) is true.
    - geezerjay 9y ago
      Wow the word-per-author ratio is close to 1. What's behind this padding?