General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Anti-woo commentators are a bunch of smug and condescending... [View all]Th1onein
(8,514 posts)We hear that "evidence-based" medicine, science, research, etc., does not support this, or does not support that. What we aren't told is that this or that is not "evidence-based" because those with the money to obtain the evidence haven't bothered to test this or that.
For instance, "This cancer drug works." The reply is, "There is no evidence that that cancer drug works." What is NOT said is that no one has spent the money to test that cancer drug. Then, there follows a lambasting of the "anecdotal evidence," with a complete ignoring of the fact that anecdotes ARE evidence. They are not empirical evidence, but they ARE evidence. What anecdotes DO is give us a hint as to what we should be testing empirically, but it goes no further than that, usually. Instead, we just get "Oh, that's anecdotal."
When you control what is tested, you control the evidence. It is a stifling of research, at it's best.