> The beneficial effects of penicillin are "impossibly large" - would we reject the evidence on those grounds? I think you miss the point -- the efficacy of pe

> The beneficial effects of penicillin are "impossibly large" - would we reject the evidence on those grounds? I think you miss the point -- the efficacy of penicillin is obvious to anyone, whether they've taken statistics or not. The authors point, as I understand it, is that if the effects are so very large they should be obvious to a=even a casual observer. If the effect is so large it's impossible for them to be surprising.