Skeptic

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Scientific skepticism or rational skepticism, sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry, is a position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence.

Do not confuse this with General Skepticism, Philosophical Skepticism, or Denialism.

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"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence." -David Hume

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Breaking Down Cass Review Myths and Misconceptions: What You Need to Know – The Quackometer (www.quackometer.net)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Seen the "98% of studies were ignored!" one doing the rounds on social media. The editorial in the BMJ put it in much better terms:

"One emerging criticism of the Cass review is that it set the methodological bar too high for research to be included in its analysis and discarded too many studies on the basis of quality. In fact, the reality is different: studies in gender medicine fall woefully short in terms of methodological rigour; the methodological bar for gender medicine studies was set too low, generating research findings that are therefore hard to interpret."

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (9 children)

Damn here's another "joke" about contraceptives and bone fractures

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD009849.pub3/full

And one another abput yellow fever and HIV

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD010929.pub2/full

And influenza vaccines in cancer patients

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD008983.pub3/full

And there's another 96 on the first search tab alone!

Just what are those clowns at the Cochrane Library up to eh?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Relevance?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (7 children)

They all use the same Newcastle-Ottawa system to score studies based on their likelihood of bias in the exact same way the Cass reviews do. The method you described as a joke.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It's not an indicator of bias, no causal study has been done to show that there is a relationship between bias and the Newcastle Ottawa scale

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Studies that self select their cohort and don't include adequate controls are more susceptible to bias than those that do otherwise. Evaluating studies based on their susceptibility to bias is a vital part of the systematic review process.

You can read more about it here https://www.ohri.ca/programs/clinical_epidemiology/oxford.asp

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But not actually proof of bias.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Ah young padawan, there is no such thing as proof of bias. There is merely the risk of susceptibility of it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Exactly which is why the Ottawa whatever standard is not sufficient to discard a study. You have to do more.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Again, you really need to feed this startling discovery back to the medical community which has been using NOS for over 20 years. What a scandal.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

No the medical community largely respects the short comings and uses of the Ottawa protocol. That's what made Class's report so insulting.

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