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Strategies of science in human affairs: How to assure the quality of scientific statements
Author(s) -
Bross Irwin D. J.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1002/cpt1974156543
Subject(s) - quality (philosophy) , modalities , computer science , concordance , intervention (counseling) , scientific evidence , risk analysis (engineering) , medicine , data science , management science , statistics , mathematics , philosophy , epistemology , social science , psychiatry , sociology , economics
A simple theory is presented describing the methodology for assuring continuing high quality of the scientific statements. A communication network for drug‐testing information is usedas an example. It is shown that there can be a close connection between the degree of concordance of the statements circulating in the communication network and the proportion of true statements providing that the procedures used in generating the statements are based strictly on factual evidence. Standard statistical methods for putting confidence intervals on relative potency are used to derive and to illustrate this point. It is argued that there is historic evidence from the record of drug testing in the past generation for the improvement in the quality of scientific statements through use of modem technology for error control.Controlled clinical trials have clearly improved the quality of statements about drugs and other modalities of clinical intervention during this time.