Posted by seldomseen on January 6, 2008, at 17:23:07
In reply to Re: correlation does not imply causality » seldomseen, posted by SLS on January 6, 2008, at 17:00:02
Statistics plays a HUGE role in all of medical research. Reaching statistical significance is pretty much the ultimate goal of any intervention study.
The problem comes in when there is a disconnect between clinical significance and statistical significance, which can happen.
Some drugs get trashed as useless, when they are actually quite good, others get pushed forward with dangerous side effect profiles. All because statistically they didn't reach significance.
It's a numbers game folks.
That's why I say, no study can ever predict what any drug will do in an individual. It can only estimate the likelihood of something happening.
poster:seldomseen
thread:804126
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080105/msgs/804677.html