Most people, it turns out, aren’t really all that skeptical. The 2016 election has taught us that what passes as ‘news’ isn’t always very true. […]
It’s Perfect! Very accurate, with a low false positive rate…
He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts – for support rather than for illumination. – Andrew Lang I recently attended a conference […]
The Percentile Fallacy
Tallinn, Estonia In ancient times they had no statistics so they had to fall back on lies. – Stephen Leacock In almost every situation where data […]
What The 2016 Election Can Teach Us About Science
A lot of folks on both ends of the political spectrum were shocked at the results of the recent national election. Virtually every poll and […]
Debiasing Strategies
All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride. — […]
Cognitive Bias
(This cartoon and nine more similar ones are here). Our human reasoning and decision-making processes are inherently flawed. Faced with so many decisions to be made every […]
Lessons Learned From Magnesium
How did our profession get so far down the wrong track regarding magnesium? Why is it today that most women in preterm labor are still […]
Penis Captivus and The Cult of Personality in Medicine
Sir William Osler editing his textbook of medicine in 1891 at Johns Hopkins. Ah, Sir William Osler. Who doesn’t love a good Osler quote? My […]
The Myth of the Black Cloud and Other Superstitions
If you’re in medicine, you have undoubtedly heard of a person with a “black cloud.” Maybe you’ve also heard of a person with a “white […]
Risk, or The Game of Life?
The ideal physician is not risk-averse but rather is a risk-mitigator. Risk is inescapable. We have to be able to understand risks in real terms […]