(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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

> 93.687% more likely to believe one that has more than four significant figures

and are 100% unable to evaluate relative risks or distinguish between likelihood of an event and the seriousness of the event's occurrence. See, for example, that large numbers have foresaken the London tube recently in order to take their lives in their hands on the statistically far more dangerous use of bicycles on London's crowded roads...

100% unable to evaluate relative risks

I don't believe that. It's got only one significant figure.

Now, if you'd said 100%±3dB…

> if you'd said 100%±3dB…

I can't shout that loud!

More people died on UK roads in traffic 'accidents' (ie, avoidable human misjudgments and errors) in the seven days following the first tube bombs than in that event. No two-minute silence or fancy church services for all those deaths. More additional deaths were caused in the USA by people taking to the roads in the year-long post 9/11 'I won't fly' frenzy than died in the twin towers themselves. Strange thing, risk assessment...