Sunday, July 4, 2010
The fourth paradigm of science
Tom Smith
https://rightcoast.typepad.com/rightcoast/2010/07/the-fourth-paradigm-of-science-tom-smith-.html
Comments
Epidemiology hasn't done awfully well as a discipline. Cigarette smoking is the biggy. Occupational exposure to asbestos is another success, though a tarnished triumph given the extent to which it has been used to rip off the owners of property containing the near-harmless white asbestos. Just last week it had a small triumph with Legionnaires' Disease and screen wash water. Probably there are a couple more that have passed me by, but it's been a lot of fuss for little return.
Posted by: dearieme | Jul 4, 2010 3:14:01 PM
This remark looked odd: "the classic scientific method: hypothesis, analysis, peer review, publication". Clearly wrong: the the classic scientific method is hypothesis, controlled experiment, analysis, publication. Data pummelling is just a way of generating hypotheses I presume. Except in "Climate Science", of course, which is no science at all.
Posted by: dearieme | Jul 4, 2010 3:20:10 PM
It may indeed be overblown when applied to Parkinson's in particular, but I suspect this type of large scale data mining epidemiological analysis would prove useful in advancing genome-based personalized medicine.
Posted by: Torrey Surfer | Jul 4, 2010 2:43:03 PM