6 ms·

It's great to be suspicious of results in a field in which you're an expert, but physicists and biochemists hardly ask their doctor for peer-reviewed proof that

It's great to be suspicious of results in a field in which you're an expert, but physicists and biochemists hardly ask their doctor for peer-reviewed proof that his advice is correct. At any rate, people who are so inclined can look up actual research done; but most people won't have the expertise to understand it anyway, which is completely normal outside of your own field. To constantly question everything, or to go with one's preconceived notions irrespective of how much evidence there is against them, is both dangerous and stupid - professional scientists might be wrong about some things, but if the vast majority of them agree on something that you're not qualified to discuss, you can and should assume that they're probably right. A good litmus test for this is asking what evidence you would need to be convinced that you're wrong; if you don't know or if the answer is there is no evidence, you don't know what you're talking about.

realitygrill 15y ago
Maybe they should ask their doctor, given the recent spate of articles on ineffectiveness of medical treatment: http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/294/2/218.abstract http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/294/2/218.abstract http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/the-ideology-of-health-care/ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/the-ideology-of-hea... (If someone could find a British metastudy containing a nice graph indicating ~50% of current standard medical treatments has no evidence of effectiveness, I would appreciate it - have had much trouble locating it.) But of course, doctors are not scientists.
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "If someone could find a British metastudy containing a nice graph indicating ~50% of current standard medical treatments has no evidence of effectiveness, I would appreciate it - have had much trouble locating it." I haven't seen that study, but if you look up any given common medical condition, for many of them there are studies about what percentage of those diagnosed are being treated in accordance with best practices. And for most conditions it's usually not more than a third. Doctors usually just prescribe whatever is advertised the most regardless of whether or not it's even remotely effective or safe, e.g. http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/15/2055 http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/15/2055
  - realitygrill 15y ago
    Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. The study also indicated a small percentage of treatments evidenced as actually harmful, so that in the end only a third of the treatments were efficacious. My own experience in a clinical setting showed that most doctors (say, outside a university health system) have trouble keeping up with the research in their field.
    - Alex3917 15y ago
      "My own experience in a clinical setting showed that most doctors (say, outside a university health system) have trouble keeping up with the research in their field." There is a study somewhere about what percentages of doctors can name at least one finding from their medical field within the last year, and it was some abysmally low figure. Do you happen to know what I'm referencing? I am looking for the cite for something, but can't find it unfortunately.
- pella 15y ago
  >"If someone could find a British metastudy containing a nice graph indicating ~50% of current standard medical treatments has no evidence of effectiveness" "What percentage of the around 3000 treatments included in Clinical Evidence fall into each category: - 11% Beneficial - 23% Likely to be beneficial - 7% Trade off between benefits and harm - 51% Unknown effectiveness - 5% Unlikely to be beneficial - 3% Likely to be ineffective or harmful http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp

realitygrill 15y ago

Maybe they should ask their doctor, given the recent spate of articles on ineffectiveness of medical treatment: http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/294/2/218.abstract http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/294/2/218.abstract http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/the-ideology-of-health-care/ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/the-ideology-of-hea... (If someone could find a British metastudy containing a nice graph indicating ~50% of current standard medical treatments has no evidence of effectiveness, I would appreciate it - have had much trouble locating it.) But of course, doctors are not scientists.

Alex3917 15y ago
"If someone could find a British metastudy containing a nice graph indicating ~50% of current standard medical treatments has no evidence of effectiveness, I would appreciate it - have had much trouble locating it." I haven't seen that study, but if you look up any given common medical condition, for many of them there are studies about what percentage of those diagnosed are being treated in accordance with best practices. And for most conditions it's usually not more than a third. Doctors usually just prescribe whatever is advertised the most regardless of whether or not it's even remotely effective or safe, e.g. http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/15/2055 http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/99/15/2055
- realitygrill 15y ago
  Interesting. I hadn't thought of that. The study also indicated a small percentage of treatments evidenced as actually harmful, so that in the end only a third of the treatments were efficacious. My own experience in a clinical setting showed that most doctors (say, outside a university health system) have trouble keeping up with the research in their field.
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    "My own experience in a clinical setting showed that most doctors (say, outside a university health system) have trouble keeping up with the research in their field." There is a study somewhere about what percentages of doctors can name at least one finding from their medical field within the last year, and it was some abysmally low figure. Do you happen to know what I'm referencing? I am looking for the cite for something, but can't find it unfortunately.
pella 15y ago
>"If someone could find a British metastudy containing a nice graph indicating ~50% of current standard medical treatments has no evidence of effectiveness" "What percentage of the around 3000 treatments included in Clinical Evidence fall into each category: - 11% Beneficial - 23% Likely to be beneficial - 7% Trade off between benefits and harm - 51% Unknown effectiveness - 5% Unlikely to be beneficial - 3% Likely to be ineffective or harmful http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp http://clinicalevidence.bmj.com/ceweb/about/knowledge.jsp