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Pathological Epidemiology (was "I spent 10 years in radiation data and emerged as the foremost expert ...")



I was struck by Bjorn's comments:



>I was actually searching for some crazy epidemiology. Sometimes it

resembles 

>evolutionary theory:

>1. Create variation (multipage questionnaires etc)

>2. Assortment of the information (data, genes etc)

>3. "Natural" selection of the fittest (a large fraction of the variation is



>lost in every new generation/study... and then there is publication bias by



>various media)

>The fittest create the money base for the next study...



>Remember Sir Karl R. Popper in 1962: "...assembled in accordance with the 

>collector's interests and points of views".



>My personal initiative only,



>Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com



In my former life as a grad student in psychology (Oh so long ago! I never

practiced the craft.) I recall that this was how we were actually trained to

do statistical analysis!  Back then, the thinking was that if you couldn't

get a correlation coefficient of at least 0.35 you just weren't trying:

Correlation not strong enough? Just increase the variance (more data points)

until it is!  Nowadays Pearson's R isn't much used, but this would

correspond to a relative risk of, what -  1.5 or so?



It is not surprising to me that at least some of the more notorious

purveyors of junk epidemiology seem to have started out in the social

sciences.  They are trained to approach research more as providing a support

for their theory-making,  than as a Popperian test of their theories.  It's

a lawyerly approach to evidence gathering.  Select the data to support your

case (theory) and ignore (or suppress) that which tends to contradict it.  



The problem with Psychology and the social science in general ( and one

reason why I eventually got out of it) is that there are so many more

theories than facts.  Bjorn's comparison to natural selection is very

interesting, but Adam Smith needs to be paid his due as well:  The selection

of competing theories in the marketplace of ideas, is based on their revenue

generating power rather than their explanatory power.



Clayton J. Bradt, CHP

Principal Radiophysicist

NYS Dept. of Labor

Radiological Health Unit

voice: (518) 457-1202

fax:    (518) 485-7406

e-mail: Clayton.Bradt@labor.state.ny.us



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