>Lack of a control doesn’t mean you are flawed. You could be using baseline results from another study as a comparison. No you can't! This is naughty! There ar

>Lack of a control doesn’t mean you are flawed. You could be using baseline results from another study as a comparison. No you can't! This is naughty! There are too many uncontrolled variables between studies. You need to run your own control group, every time, to have any experimental power. To be sure, it's common to cheat in the way that you describe, for budgetary reasons. That doesn't make it good science.