Science: Oh, you found a study? How nice for you!
On Facebook, my friend Joe Duarte, a grad student in positive psychology at Arizona State University, asked why I’ve been so scornful of science and clinical trials lately. (For those who don’t know, for six years I studied to be a research scientist while pursuing my Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of New Mexico.) I replied:
As you might suppose, I’m not a proponent of rejecting science or clinical trials, per se. Rather, I’m a critic of how people trust them broadly, while remaining ignorant of common systematic faults in how they are used. Science has become a kind of secular religion, and just as dangerous to the promotion of knowledge in society.
John Ioannidis’s work provides one good point of reference for why we all need a horse-pill sized dose of skepticism about studies we come across. Another good one is Judith Curry’s research on false positives.
I’ve seen too clearly how rubbery the statistics and claims can be in clinical trials, all while parading under the banner of science.
Maybe I’m a lover of what clinical trials will be able to tell us in thirty years. But today I mostly see flabby science, and that’s before the media gets hold of it, and long before the average non-scientist tries to make sense of what they heard in the media.
Conducting strong studies in the healthcare field often requires a ton of manpower and money, which means so much of the current hardcore research is dominated by pharmaceutical companies and government grants, each driving their own dump-truck of smelly biases and agendas.
Top domain experts are in the best position to reliably discern what is known, what is unknown, and what is still in that gray area between the two. Yet these same experts commonly promote ideas later shown to be bunk. That should be more than a little disconcerting to anyone who places a lot of confidence in the science available to us today.
My view is that the clinical trial, as a methodology of applying reason rigorously, is still in its teenage years if not its infancy. So what do I do in the interim? Enjoy the game. Scoff at things that don’t seem to pass the smell test, scientifically or philosophically.
And I’m irreverent toward anything that seems like a religious trust in science, and I am more inclined to trust people who show a healthy skepticism about the ways science is conducted and who recognize just how little we truly know about anything within about 90 yards of the leading edge of science.
Did I mention some people treat science like religion? “But there are STUDIES…” Uh-huh.
To me lately clinical trials often seem more like a sport than a science. I’m no longer in a league, so instead I root for my team, mock the opposition, and enjoy the show.
I’m glad you’re doing the research you do, and are as aware as you are of the pitfalls in the process. I look forward to seeing where you go with it! Now, where’s my popcorn….
Originally published at Mudita Journal. Please leave any comments there.