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The definition of snake oil is basically medicine that has a claimed benefit but little/no supporting evidence. Once you have strong backing data , it's not sn
by jiggy2011 14y ago
The definition of snake oil is basically medicine that has a claimed benefit but little/no supporting evidence.
Once you have strong backing data , it's not snake oil anymore and it becomes increasingly difficult to make that claim.
- MartinCron 14y agoBacking data that's strong enough to satisfy some critics is impossible to obtain. Anecdotes? Obviously not OK. Small-scale controlled experiments can be dismissed as nothing more than pointless toy exercises that have no bearing on real-world production code. Large-scale controlled experiments are impractical. Blinding and placebos aren't possible. Isolating confounding elements such as individual performance would be difficult. Burden of proof is burdensome, I guess.
- jiggy2011 14y agoBasically yes. I'm sure it would be possible to do a good study but very expensive. Although if the potential upside is increasing the productivity of an entire industry maybe it's worth doing.