My favorite semi-facetious/sarcastic journal article: http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 "Conclusions As with ma

My favorite semi-facetious/sarcastic journal article: http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459 "Conclusions As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute." And a less facetious one http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7570/701 http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7570/701 Both of which point out obvious shortcomings of slavish reliance on large, randomized controlled clinical trials for every circumstance.