4 ms·

the number of experiments. one challenge is distinguishing between actual effects and random chance. hence the need for replication.

feralimal 6y ago
Absolutely, replication repetition does help understand and draw out a hypothesis. But why does that mean that anecdotal evidence is invalid?
- Retric 6y ago
  N=1 means the sample size within an experiment. Combining several experiments might seem like it’s the same thing as one larger experiment, but biased sampling is a major issue. Let’s assume some Democrats go to trump rally’s for the experience. If you take say 100 people chosen randomly from a rally you could estimate how common that was. However, if you look at interviews of people at Trump rallies the interviewer may have been more or less likely to include such people. As such what your examining is people the interviewer found interesting who where also at a rally which is a very different group. The surest way to get sampling bias is to some other criteria after the initial selection that can exclude samples from your examination. This might be as obvious as people who hung up on political polling or it can happen before the selection process. Aka I want 1,000 random Americans very often excludes people living outside America at say embassy’s, the homeless, prisoners, children, etc depending on how people are selected. For a given experiment you could look at how people where selected, but when combining random interesting examples you have no idea what’s being excluded which is why their considered worthless.
  - feralimal 6y ago
    Thanks. But are you doing all that personally? Do you have time? Probably not - I certainly I'm not polling hundreds of people over each minutaie in my life. So, it is likely that neither of us have done the work personally. The difference is that I distrust the output of science by default. I understand that it is an industry and I'm deeply suspicious of all its pronouncements. I'm on the lookout for the monetary upside, and what isn't being discussed. I love the scientific method, but it is not the be all and end all. What q Could a drug company ever say: "Guys, we've done the testing, and the best thing if you have XXX disease is NOT a drug. No, the best thing is to go on a juice diet and prolonged fasting."? It could not. With individuals, I am more open. If you can speak to someone, eg Doreen in this case has offered her perspective, that counts for far more with me. I know most individuals are happy to offer help and their perspective out of natural good will. Mostly individuals are trustworthy. The system that individuals are forced to engage with however is degenerative, and system/corporate/governmental outputs are propagandistic and in the service of the system itself.
    - Retric 6y ago
      > It could not. The entire point of clinical trials is to see if a specific drug is a good option and a great many of them fail, which is the drug company saying nope try something else. In specific cases they actually do compare them to other treatments like exercise. It’s mostly a question of what’s the current treatment, if they wanted to sell a post operation drug you can bet they would need to test exercise. Edit: Now I agree drug companies would not make a big deal about advertising that result, but that’s a different story. There are any number of studies in the effect of exercise and physical therapy currently uses motion not drugs to help people recover from surgery. Diet and exercise are actually prescribed to manage many health issues, it’s also recognized that people will often ignore such advice. We don’t do gastric bypass surgery etc for people who need to lose 10 pounds, but when people simply don’t follow medical advice there are simply fewer options. So, a huge body of evidence suggests this deeply held belief of yours is wrong. PS: there were approximately 210,900 physical therapists employed in the United States Exercise is actually the most commonly prescribed and studied treatment.
      - feralimal 6y ago
        > Edit: Now I agree drug companies would not make a big deal about advertising that result, but that’s a different story. Well, its only a different story for drug companies. For you and I, as individuals, what value is science, if it will provide you with drug options to imperfectly manage your diabetes, but not tell you how to avoid it completely. Would you say that science is progressing towards truth and greater knowledge, or towards truth and greater knowledge of how to extract more money from those it is purporting to serve?
        Retric 6y ago
        That’s a false dichotomy. Science doesn’t really serve humanity it’s simply a method. Drug companies very much benefit from making products that work, but viagra isn’t curing cancer. On the older side, people don’t study quasar’s because that makes some billionaire richer. It’s easy to argue the first one is less pure, but it’s also more useful to more people. Commercial science has many issues. It’s probably a net negative for humanity that advertising is using science to sell more stuff, or gaming companies to make more addictive games. In the end science is used for all kinds of things from saving billions of lives to putting those same lives at risk. Thinking of Science as good or bad is like thinking of Math as good or bad. It’s simply a tool used by humans doing human things, both great and terrible. PS: As to drugs not curing diseases, that’s kind of a limitation on what drug actually are. I think Vaccines really confuse the issue in people’s minds, but that’s not the drug that’s someone’s immune system at work. Drugs can kill organisms, but they generally can’t cause permanent changes. Your body is constantly recycling material, breaking stuff down, and excreting it for a permanent change to occur they would need to cause long term physical changes even after being removed from the body. Mimic a growth hormone at the right time or kill off some cells and sure that can stick, but that’s about it.
- ganafagol 6y ago
  One way to answer this is to point out that an anecdote always comes with its own replication crisis. The term "replication crisis" is essentially a generalization of the concept of an anecdote. In other words, if a result can't be reproduced, then it's essentially just an anecdote. So, your (rightful) mention of the replication crisis gives you a direct explanation for why anecdotal evidence is inherently problematic in the scientific endeavour for knowledge.
monktastic1 6y ago
More commonly it refers to the number of test subjects, actually.

feralimal 6y ago

Absolutely, replication repetition does help understand and draw out a hypothesis. But why does that mean that anecdotal evidence is invalid?

Retric 6y ago
N=1 means the sample size within an experiment. Combining several experiments might seem like it’s the same thing as one larger experiment, but biased sampling is a major issue. Let’s assume some Democrats go to trump rally’s for the experience. If you take say 100 people chosen randomly from a rally you could estimate how common that was. However, if you look at interviews of people at Trump rallies the interviewer may have been more or less likely to include such people. As such what your examining is people the interviewer found interesting who where also at a rally which is a very different group. The surest way to get sampling bias is to some other criteria after the initial selection that can exclude samples from your examination. This might be as obvious as people who hung up on political polling or it can happen before the selection process. Aka I want 1,000 random Americans very often excludes people living outside America at say embassy’s, the homeless, prisoners, children, etc depending on how people are selected. For a given experiment you could look at how people where selected, but when combining random interesting examples you have no idea what’s being excluded which is why their considered worthless.
- feralimal 6y ago
  Thanks. But are you doing all that personally? Do you have time? Probably not - I certainly I'm not polling hundreds of people over each minutaie in my life. So, it is likely that neither of us have done the work personally. The difference is that I distrust the output of science by default. I understand that it is an industry and I'm deeply suspicious of all its pronouncements. I'm on the lookout for the monetary upside, and what isn't being discussed. I love the scientific method, but it is not the be all and end all. What q Could a drug company ever say: "Guys, we've done the testing, and the best thing if you have XXX disease is NOT a drug. No, the best thing is to go on a juice diet and prolonged fasting."? It could not. With individuals, I am more open. If you can speak to someone, eg Doreen in this case has offered her perspective, that counts for far more with me. I know most individuals are happy to offer help and their perspective out of natural good will. Mostly individuals are trustworthy. The system that individuals are forced to engage with however is degenerative, and system/corporate/governmental outputs are propagandistic and in the service of the system itself.
  - Retric 6y ago
    > It could not. The entire point of clinical trials is to see if a specific drug is a good option and a great many of them fail, which is the drug company saying nope try something else. In specific cases they actually do compare them to other treatments like exercise. It’s mostly a question of what’s the current treatment, if they wanted to sell a post operation drug you can bet they would need to test exercise. Edit: Now I agree drug companies would not make a big deal about advertising that result, but that’s a different story. There are any number of studies in the effect of exercise and physical therapy currently uses motion not drugs to help people recover from surgery. Diet and exercise are actually prescribed to manage many health issues, it’s also recognized that people will often ignore such advice. We don’t do gastric bypass surgery etc for people who need to lose 10 pounds, but when people simply don’t follow medical advice there are simply fewer options. So, a huge body of evidence suggests this deeply held belief of yours is wrong. PS: there were approximately 210,900 physical therapists employed in the United States Exercise is actually the most commonly prescribed and studied treatment.
    - feralimal 6y ago
      > Edit: Now I agree drug companies would not make a big deal about advertising that result, but that’s a different story. Well, its only a different story for drug companies. For you and I, as individuals, what value is science, if it will provide you with drug options to imperfectly manage your diabetes, but not tell you how to avoid it completely. Would you say that science is progressing towards truth and greater knowledge, or towards truth and greater knowledge of how to extract more money from those it is purporting to serve?
      - Retric 6y ago
        That’s a false dichotomy. Science doesn’t really serve humanity it’s simply a method. Drug companies very much benefit from making products that work, but viagra isn’t curing cancer. On the older side, people don’t study quasar’s because that makes some billionaire richer. It’s easy to argue the first one is less pure, but it’s also more useful to more people. Commercial science has many issues. It’s probably a net negative for humanity that advertising is using science to sell more stuff, or gaming companies to make more addictive games. In the end science is used for all kinds of things from saving billions of lives to putting those same lives at risk. Thinking of Science as good or bad is like thinking of Math as good or bad. It’s simply a tool used by humans doing human things, both great and terrible. PS: As to drugs not curing diseases, that’s kind of a limitation on what drug actually are. I think Vaccines really confuse the issue in people’s minds, but that’s not the drug that’s someone’s immune system at work. Drugs can kill organisms, but they generally can’t cause permanent changes. Your body is constantly recycling material, breaking stuff down, and excreting it for a permanent change to occur they would need to cause long term physical changes even after being removed from the body. Mimic a growth hormone at the right time or kill off some cells and sure that can stick, but that’s about it.
ganafagol 6y ago
One way to answer this is to point out that an anecdote always comes with its own replication crisis. The term "replication crisis" is essentially a generalization of the concept of an anecdote. In other words, if a result can't be reproduced, then it's essentially just an anecdote. So, your (rightful) mention of the replication crisis gives you a direct explanation for why anecdotal evidence is inherently problematic in the scientific endeavour for knowledge.

monktastic1 6y ago

More commonly it refers to the number of test subjects, actually.