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#145229 07/20/05 01:13 AM
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tsuwm Offline OP
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New study: 16% of studies contradicted by studies

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5503617.html
(you can't make this stuff up!)


#145230 07/20/05 01:23 AM
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how long before we find out that the % is wrong...

say hello to my cousin, Doug!



formerly known as etaoin...
#145231 07/20/05 01:05 PM
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you can't make this stuff up!

Are you aware that 63% of all statistics are made up?


#145232 07/20/05 02:25 PM
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(you can't make this stuff up!)

I agree this headline sounds ironic, tsuwm, but, if we look beneath the attention-getting headline, we can see that the world-wide medical research community is self-correcting and dynamic and scientifically rigorous and reliable overall.

Extract:

"A single study is not the final word, and that is an important message," editors at the New England Journal of Medicine said in a statement about the study.
--------------
Ioannidis acknowledged an important but not very reassuring caveat: "There's no proof that the subsequent studies ... were necessarily correct." But he noted that in all 14 cases in which results were contradicted or softened, the subsequent studies were either larger or better designed.

"He said the studies most likely to be contradicted later were nonrandomized studies. These are often based on observations of patients' lifestyles rather than on results from a drug or other intervention assigned by researchers."

re you can't make this stuff up!

Well, actually, you can make this stuff up. The best headliner writers do it every day. The whole idea is to attract attention and get people to read the story.

The bottom line message in this story - that patients and doctors shouldn't place too much reliance on the results of a single study - is very important, so we are fortunate that such a clever writer was assigned to write the headline which caught your eye and which you brought here to amuse us.

It reminds me of a bee cross-pollinating a fruit tree or flowering plant. The bee doesn't know it is cross-pollinating the fruit tree or plant, but it doesn't need to know.

Cross-pollination, so critical to the propogation of the recipient, is happening anyway.

Sometimes we serve a higher cause without knowing, or intending, to serve a higher cause. That seems to be nature's way ... its best kept secret, perhaps.





#145233 07/20/05 05:45 PM
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Are you aware that 63% of all statistics are made up?

...confirming tsuwms (old) assertion that '37' is the correct answer, not '42' as *previously imagined.


#145234 07/20/05 06:38 PM
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In the words of my biggest hero, Ronald Reagan, "There you go again."

First off you disagree with tswum about making stuff up and bring up a non sequitor (which also happens to be untrue) that headline writers make things up.

Then you have this little snide aside about how tswum posted it here to "amuse" us. Are you tswum? I've gotten the impresion that you aren't, but if you aren't how do you know why that person posted it?

Then you bring up a slant which takes us back to your viewpoints on why this place exists, which appear to be in your mind for your personal delight. And on top of that you imply tswum has no idea that he was engaging in cross-pollination.

And in your last paragraph it should be "its" not "it's."

Do not go away angry. Just go away.

Curly


#145235 07/20/05 06:51 PM
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...confirming tsuwms (old) assertion that '37' is the correct answer, not '42' as *previously imagined.




#145236 07/20/05 07:25 PM
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tsuwm Offline OP
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yes, I've mentioned here that 37 is the Sacred Number of the Hell's Tunas MC. but wait..

here's more: http://thirty-seven.org/index.html


#145237 07/20/05 10:14 PM
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the words of my biggest hero, Ronald Reagan, "There you go again."

Or, "You don't *have to fool all of the people all of the time."

As for the statistics quote, remember that people are 87.6% more likely to believe a statistic that has more than two significant figures and 93.687% more likely to believe one that has more than four significant figures


#145238 07/21/05 10:24 AM
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it should be "its" not "it's"

Thank you, Churl. I've made the correction you recommended.

re "Do not go away angry. Just go away."

I had decided to go away to allow some of the hotheads to cool off, as etaoin recommended.

But you've convinced me to stay.

I don't enjoy returning insults, but I enjoy running from them even less.








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