4 ms·
I think the gold standard is experimenting for physical systems. Then you can control for whatever you want. For medicine it would be double blind study (select
by vladms 3y ago
I think the gold standard is experimenting for physical systems. Then you can control for whatever you want. For medicine it would be double blind study (select participants, split them in 2 groups, then you know the groups are the same, give one group the medicine, give the other group placebo).
And then we get to social sciences - like economics - very hard to make an experiment. You can't just play with the interest rate to write a paper...
- vkou 3y agoYes, it's difficult to run macroeconomic experiments. The question still stands. What degree of evidence is sufficient to not be off-hand-dismissed with 'Correlation does not imply causation'?
- ttyprintk 3y agoSince inferring causality is hard, we look for counterexamples that disprove it. Hence the reliance on randomization and the null hypothesis. A counterexample in social sciences might be that the corresponding relationship is found across methodologies and cultures. This turns a question of causal inference into questioning the power of overturning longitudinal data. Statisticians differ about the philosophy on that.
- ttyprintk 3y agoI agree it depends on the domain. “Successful randomization” might be a more helpful term than “gold standard” here because in this domain the amount of covariance with gold prices is embedded into some people’s arguments.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]