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Does reductio ad absurdum have a place in evidence-based medicine?
- Source :
- BMC Medicine, BMC Medicine, BioMed Central, 2014, 12 (1), pp.106. ⟨10.1186/1741-7015-12-106⟩, BMC Medicine, 2014, 12 (1), pp.106. ⟨10.1186/1741-7015-12-106⟩, BMC Medicine, BioMed Central, 2014, 12, pp.106. 〈10.1186/1741-7015-12-106〉
- Publication Year :
- 2014
- Publisher :
- HAL CCSD, 2014.
-
Abstract
- In a meta-analysis published in BMC Medicine, we explored whether evidence-based medicine can actually be sure that ‘sucrose = sucrose’ in the treatment of depression. This paper, based upon a reductio ad absurdum, addressed an epistemological question using a ‘scientific’ approach, and could be disconcerting as suggested by Cipriani and Geddes’ commentary. However, most papers are based upon a mixture of observations and discussions about sense and meaning. Ultimately, there is nothing more than a story, told with words or numbers. Randomised controlled trials provide information about average patients that do not exist. These results ignores an entire segment of therapeutics that plays a crucial role, namely care. This information is usually set out using a ‘grammar’ that is ambiguous, since statistical tests of hypothesis have raised epistemological questions that are not as yet solved. Moreover, many of these stories remain untold, and unpublished. For these reasons evidence-based medicine is a vehicle for many paradoxes and controversies. Reductio ad absurdum can be useful in precisely this case, to underline how and why the medical literature can sometimes give an impression of absurdity of this sort. Even if the data analysis in our paper was rather rhetorical, we agree that it should comply with the classic standards of reporting and we provide the important extra data that Cipriani and Geddes have requested. Please see related articles: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/230 and http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/12/105.
- Subjects :
- Evidence-based medicine
media_common.quotation_subject
Major depressive disorder
Epistemology
Publication bias
Placebos
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Nothing
[ SDV.MHEP ] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Human health and pathology
Rhetorical question
Reductio ad absurdum
Humans
Medicine
030212 general & internal medicine
Meaning (existential)
Set (psychology)
Absurdity
Placebo
media_common
Medicine(all)
[SDV.MHEP] Life Sciences [q-bio]/Human health and pathology
Depression
business.industry
Comment
Statistics
Antidepressants
General Medicine
Antidepressive Agents
3. Good health
Meta-analysis
Commentary
business
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
[SDV.MHEP]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Human health and pathology
Medical literature
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 17417015
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- BMC Medicine, BMC Medicine, BioMed Central, 2014, 12 (1), pp.106. ⟨10.1186/1741-7015-12-106⟩, BMC Medicine, 2014, 12 (1), pp.106. ⟨10.1186/1741-7015-12-106⟩, BMC Medicine, BioMed Central, 2014, 12, pp.106. 〈10.1186/1741-7015-12-106〉
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....454081afc8bcd41b2399e0846b91ef0b