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Are RCTs the gold standard?

In Causal powers: what are they? why do we need them? what can be done with them and what cannot? Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science (2007)

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  1. Some Reflections on Causation.Yafeng Shan - 2024 - In Alternative Philosophical Approaches to Causation: Beyond Difference-making and Mechanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1-12.
    Philosophical analyses of causation have been centred on the question of what causation is. More precisely speaking, philosophers tend to address four different issues: metaphysical (what is causation out there?), epistemological (how can a causal claim be established and assessed?), conceptual (what does the word ‘cause’ mean?), and methodological (what methods ought one to use in order to establish and assess causal claims?). This chapter argues that the practical issue of causation (what is a causal claim for in practice?) is (...)
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  • (1 other version)Assessing the Overall Validity of Randomised Controlled Trials.Alexander Krauss - 2021 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 34 (3):159-182.
    In the biomedical, behavioural and social sciences, the leading method used to estimate causal effects is commonly randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that are generally viewed as both the source and justification of the most valid evidence. In studying the foundation and theory behind RCTs, the existing literature analyses important single issues and biases in isolation that influence causal outcomes in trials (such as randomisation, statistical probabilities and placebos). The common account of biased causal inference is described in a general way (...)
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  • Incentives for Research Effort: An Evolutionary Model of Publication Markets with Double-Blind and Open Review.Mantas Radzvilas, Francesco De Pretis, William Peden, Daniele Tortoli & Barbara Osimani - 2023 - Computational Economics 61:1433-1476.
    Contemporary debates about scientific institutions and practice feature many proposed reforms. Most of these require increased efforts from scientists. But how do scientists’ incentives for effort interact? How can scientific institutions encourage scientists to invest effort in research? We explore these questions using a game-theoretic model of publication markets. We employ a base game between authors and reviewers, before assessing some of its tendencies by means of analysis and simulations. We compare how the effort expenditures of these groups interact in (...)
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  • Agent-Based Models as Etio-Prognostic Explanations.Olaf Dammann - 2021 - Argumenta 7 (1):19-38.
    Agent-based models (ABMs) are one type of simulation model used in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast to equation-based models, ABMs are algorithms that use individual agents and attribute changing characteristics to each one, multiple times during multiple iterations over time. This paper focuses on three philosophical aspects of ABMs as models of causal mechanisms, as generators of emergent phenomena, and as providers of explanation. Based on my discussion, I conclude that while ABMs cannot help much with causal (...)
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  • The politics of knowledge in inclusive development and innovation.David Ludwig, Birgit Boogaard, Phil Macnaghten & Cees Leeuwis (eds.) - 2021 - Routledge.
    This book develops an integrated perspective on the practices and politics of making knowledge work in inclusive development and innovation. While debates about development and innovation commonly appeal to the authority of academic researchers, many current approaches emphasize the plurality of actors with relevant expertise for addressing livelihood challenges. Adopting an action-oriented and reflexive approach, this volume explores the variety of ways in which knowledge works, paying particular attention to dilemmas and controversies. The six parts of the book address the (...)
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  • Science & Speculation.Adrian Currie - 2021 - Erkenntnis 88 (2):597-619.
    Despite wide recognition that speculation is critical for successful science, philosophers have attended little to it. When they have, speculation has been characterized in narrowly epistemic terms: a hypothesis is speculative due to its (lack of) evidential support. These ‘evidence-first’ accounts provide little guidance for what makes speculation productive or egregious, nor how to foster the former while avoiding the latter. I examine how scientists discuss speculation and identify various functions speculations play. On this basis, I develop a ‘function-first’ account (...)
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  • Philosophers on drugs.Bennett Holman - 2019 - Synthese 196 (11):4363-4390.
    There are some philosophical questions that can be answered without attention to the social context in which evidence is produced and distributed.ing away from social context is an excellent way to ignore messy details and lay bare the underlying structure of the limits of inference. Idealization is entirely appropriate when one is essentially asking: In the best of all possible worlds, what am I entitled to infer? Yet, philosophers’ concerns often go beyond this domain. As an example I examine the (...)
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  • Experimental Design: Ethics, Integrity and the Scientific Method.Jonathan Lewis - 2020 - In Ron Iphofen (ed.), Handbook of Research Ethics and Scientific Integrity. Springer. pp. 459-474.
    Experimental design is one aspect of a scientific method. A well-designed, properly conducted experiment aims to control variables in order to isolate and manipulate causal effects and thereby maximize internal validity, support causal inferences, and guarantee reliable results. Traditionally employed in the natural sciences, experimental design has become an important part of research in the social and behavioral sciences. Experimental methods are also endorsed as the most reliable guides to policy effectiveness. Through a discussion of some of the central concepts (...)
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  • Randomized Controlled Trials: How Can We Know “What Works”?Nick Cowen, Baljinder Virk, Stella Mascarenhas-Keyes & Nancy Cartwright - 2017 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 29 (3):265-292.
    ABSTRACT“Evidence-based” methods, which most prominently include randomized controlled trials, have gained increasing purchase as the “gold standard” for assessing the effect of public policies. But the enthusiasm for evidence-based research overlooks questions about the reliability and applicability of experimental findings to diverse real-world settings. Perhaps surprisingly, a qualitative study of British educators suggests that they are aware of these limitations and therefore take evidence-based findings with a much larger grain of salt than do policy makers. Their experience suggests that the (...)
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  • 'Explicating ways of consensus-making: Distinguishing the academic, the interface and the meta-consensus.Laszlo Kosolosky & Jeroen Van Bouwel - 2014 - In Martini Carlo (ed.), Experts and Consensus in Social Science. Springer. pp. 71-92.
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  • What’s in a gold standard? In defence of randomised controlled trials.Marius Backmann - 2017 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 20 (4):513-523.
    The standardised randomised clinical trial (RCT) has been exceedingly popular in medical research, economics, and practical policy making. Recently, RCTs have faced criticism. First, it has been argued by John Worrall that we cannot be certain that our sample is not atypical with regard to possible confounding factors. I will argue that at least in the case of medical research, we know enough about the relevant causal mechanisms to be justified to ignore a number of factors we have good reason (...)
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  • Hollow Hunt for Harms.Jacob Stegenga - 2016 - Perspectives on Science 24 (5):481-504.
    Harms of medical interventions are systematically underestimated in clinical research. Numerous factors—conceptual, methodological, and social—contribute to this underestimation. I articulate the depth of such underestimation by describing these factors at the various stages of clinical research. Before any evidence is gathered, the ways harms are operationalized in clinical research contributes to their underestimation. Medical interventions are first tested in phase 1 ‘first in human’ trials, but evidence from these trials is rarely published, despite the fact that such trials provide the (...)
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  • Concepts and Causes in the Philosophy of Disease.Benjamin Smart - 2015 - London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
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  • The scientific limits of understanding the (potential) relationship between complex social phenomena: the case of democracy and inequality.Alexander Krauss - 2015 - Journal of Economic Methodology 23 (1):97-109.
    This paper outlines the methodological and empirical limitations of analysing the potential relationship between complex social phenomena such as democracy and inequality. It shows that the means to assess how they may be related is much more limited than recognised in the existing literature that is laden with contradictory hypotheses and findings. Better understanding our scientific limitations in studying this potential relationship is important for research and policy because many leading economists and other social scientists such as Acemoglu and Robinson (...)
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  • Philosophical controversies in the evaluation of medical treatments : With a focus on the evidential roles of randomization and mechanisms in Evidence-Based Medicine.Alexander Mebius - 2015 - Dissertation, Kth Royal Institute of Technology
    This thesis examines philosophical controversies surrounding the evaluation of medical treatments, with a focus on the evidential roles of randomised trials and mechanisms in Evidence-Based Medicine. Current 'best practice' usually involves excluding non-randomised trial evidence from systematic reviews in cases where randomised trials are available for inclusion in the reviews. The first paper challenges this practice and evaluates whether adding of evidence from non-randomised trials might improve the quality and precision of some systematic reviews. The second paper compares the alleged (...)
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  • Three Criteria for Consensus Conferences.Jacob Stegenga - 2016 - Foundations of Science 21 (1):35-49.
    Consensus conferences are social techniques which involve bringing together a group of scientific experts, and sometimes also non-experts, in order to increase the public role in science and related policy, to amalgamate diverse and often contradictory evidence for a hypothesis of interest, and to achieve scientific consensus or at least the appearance of consensus among scientists. For consensus conferences that set out to amalgamate evidence, I propose three desiderata: Inclusivity, Constraint, and Evidential Complexity. Two examples suggest that consensus conferences can (...)
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  • Medicine and the individual: is phenomenology the answer?Tania L. Gergel - 2012 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18 (5):1102-1109.
    The issue of how to incorporate the individual's first‐hand experience of illness into broader medical understanding is a major question in medical theory and practice. In a philosophical context, phenomenology, with its emphasis on the subject's perception of phenomena as the basis for knowledge and its questioning of naturalism, seems an obvious candidate for addressing these issues. This is a review of current phenomenological approaches to medicine, looking at what has motivated this philosophical approach, the main problems it faces and (...)
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  • In favour of a Millian proposal to reform biomedical research.Julian Reiss - 2010 - Synthese 177 (3):427 - 447.
    One way to make philosophy of science more socially relevant is to attend to specific scientific practises that affect society to a great extent. One such practise is biomedical research. This paper looks at contemporary U.S. biomedical research in particular and argues that it suffers from important epistemic, moral and socioeconomic failings. It then discusses and criticises existing approaches to improve on the status quo, most prominently by Thomas Pogge (a political philosopher), Joseph Stiglitz (a Nobel-prize winning economist) and James (...)
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  • Evidence in biology and the conditions of success.Jacob Stegenga - 2013 - Biology and Philosophy 28 (6):981-1004.
    I describe two traditions of philosophical accounts of evidence: one characterizes the notion in terms of signs of success, the other characterizes the notion in terms of conditions of success. The best examples of the former rely on the probability calculus, and have the virtues of generality and theoretical simplicity. The best examples of the latter describe the features of evidence which scientists appeal to in practice, which include general features of methods, such as quality and relevance, and general features (...)
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  • Just a paradigm: evidence-based medicine in epistemological context.Miriam Solomon - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (3):451-466.
    Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) developed from the work of clinical epidemiologists at McMaster University and Oxford University in the 1970s and 1980s and self-consciously presented itself as a "new paradigm" called "evidence-based medicine" in the early 1990s. The techniques of the randomized controlled trial, systematic review and meta-analysis have produced an extensive and powerful body of research. They have also generated a critical literature that raises general concerns about its methods. This paper is a systematic review of the critical literature. It (...)
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  • How to be rational about empirical success in ongoing science: The case of the quantum nose and its critics.Ann-Sophie Barwich - 2018 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 69:40-51.
    Empirical success is a central criterion for scientific decision-making. Yet its understanding in philosophical studies of science deserves renewed attention: Should philosophers think differently about the advancement of science when they deal with the uncertainty of outcome in ongoing research in comparison with historical episodes? This paper argues that normative appeals to empirical success in the evaluation of competing scientific explanations can result in unreliable conclusions, especially when we are looking at the changeability of direction in ongoing investigations. The challenges (...)
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  • Real and Virtual Clinical Trials: A Formal Analysis.Barbara Osimani, Marta Bertolaso, Roland Poellinger & Emanuele Frontoni - 2018 - Topoi 38 (2):411-422.
    If well-designed, the results of a Randomised Clinical Trial can justify a causal claim between treatment and effect in the study population; however, additional information might be needed to carry over this result to another population. RCTs have been criticized exactly on grounds of failing to provide this sort of information Evidence, inference and enquiry. Oxford University Press, New York, 2011), as well as to black-box important details regarding the mechanisms underpinning the causal law instantiated by the RCT result. On (...)
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  • Epistemology of causal inference in pharmacology: Towards a framework for the assessment of harms.Juergen Landes, Barbara Osimani & Roland Poellinger - 2018 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 8 (1):3-49.
    Philosophical discussions on causal inference in medicine are stuck in dyadic camps, each defending one kind of evidence or method rather than another as best support for causal hypotheses. Whereas Evidence Based Medicine advocates the use of Randomised Controlled Trials and systematic reviews of RCTs as gold standard, philosophers of science emphasise the importance of mechanisms and their distinctive informational contribution to causal inference and assessment. Some have suggested the adoption of a pluralistic approach to causal inference, and an inductive (...)
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  • The Disconnect Problem, Scientific Authority, and Climate Policy.Matthew J. Brown & Joyce C. Havstad - 2017 - Perspectives on Science 25 (1):67-94.
    The disconnect problem arises wherever there is ongoing and severe discordance between the scientific assessment of a politically relevant issue, and the politics and legislation of said issue. Here, we focus on the disconnect problem as it arises in the case of climate change, diagnosing a failure to respect the necessary tradeoff between authority and autonomy within a public institution like science. After assessing the problematic deployment of scientific authority in this arena, we offer suggestions for how to mitigate climate (...)
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  • (1 other version)Hunting Side Effects and Explaining Them: Should We Reverse Evidence Hierarchies Upside Down?Barbara Osimani - 2014 - Topoi 33 (2):295-312.
    Philosophical discussions have critically analysed the methodological pitfalls and epistemological implications of evidence assessment in medicine, however they have mainly focused on evidence of treatment efficacy. Most of this work is devoted to statistical methods of causal inference with a special attention to the privileged role assigned to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in evidence based medicine. Regardless of whether the RCT’s privilege holds for efficacy assessment, it is nevertheless important to make a distinction between causal inference of intended and unintended (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Evidence‐based policy : where is our theory of evidence?N. Cartwright, A. Goldfinch & J. Howick - 2009 - Journal of Children’s Services 4 (4):6--14.
    This article critically analyses the concept of evidence in evidence‐based policy, arguing that there is a key problem: there is no existing practicable theory of evidence, one which is philosophically‐grounded and yet applicable for evidence‐based policy. The article critically considers both philosophical accounts of evidence and practical treatments of evidence in evidence‐based policy. It argues that both fail in different ways to provide a theory of evidence that is adequate for evidence‐based policy. The article contributes to the debate about how (...)
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  • Causality and causal modelling in the social sciences.Federica Russo - 2009 - Springer, Dordrecht.
    The anti-causal prophecies of last century have been disproved. Causality is neither a ‘relic of a bygone’ nor ‘another fetish of modern science’; it still occupies a large part of the current debate in philosophy and the sciences. This investigation into causal modelling presents the rationale of causality, i.e. the notion that guides causal reasoning in causal modelling. It is argued that causal models are regimented by a rationale of variation, nor of regularity neither invariance, thus breaking down the dominant (...)
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  • A Role for Science in Public Policy? The Obstacles, Illustrated by the Case of Breast Cancer Screening Policy.Manuela Fernández Pinto & Janet A. Kourany - 2018 - Science, Technology, and Human Values 43 (5):917-943.
    A coherent and helpful public policy based on science is difficult to achieve for at least three reasons. First, there are purely practical problems—for example, that scientific experts often disagree on policy-relevant questions and their debates often continue well beyond policy appropriate timelines. Second, there are epistemic problems—for example, that science is hardly the neutral supplier of factual information that traditionally has been supposed. And third, there are social problems: given the commercialization of today’s science and its enduring limitations, much (...)
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  • Down with the Hierarchies.Jacob Stegenga - 2014 - Topoi 33 (2):313-322.
    Evidence hierarchies are widely used to assess evidence in systematic reviews of medical studies. I give several arguments against the use of evidence hierarchies. The problems with evidence hierarchies are numerous, and include methodological shortcomings, philosophical problems, and formal constraints. I argue that medical science should not employ evidence hierarchies, including even the latest and most-sophisticated of such hierarchies.
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  • Medical knowledge in a social world: Introduction to the special issue.Bennett Holman, Sven Bernecker & Luciana Garbayo - 2019 - Synthese 196 (11):4351-4361.
    Philosophy of medicine has traditionally examined two issues: the scientific ontology for medicine and the epistemic significance of the types of evidence used in medical research. In answering each question, philosophers have typically brought to bear tools from traditional analytic philosophy. In contrast, this volume explores medical knowledge from the perspective offered by social epistemology.While many of the same issues are addressed, the approach to these issues generates both fresh questions and new insights into old debates. In addition, the broader (...)
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  • We are All Bayesian, Everyone is Not a Bayesian.Mattia Andreoletti & Andrea Oldofredi - 2019 - Topoi 38 (2):477-485.
    Medical research makes intensive use of statistics in order to support its claims. In this paper we make explicit an epistemological tension between the conduct of clinical trials and their interpretation: statistical evidence is sometimes discarded on the basis of an underlined Bayesian reasoning. We suggest that acknowledging the potentiality of Bayesian statistics might contribute to clarify and improve comprehension of medical research. Nevertheless, despite Bayesianism may provide a better account for scientific inference with respect to the standard frequentist approach, (...)
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  • No evidence amalgamation without evidence measurement.Veronica J. Vieland & Hasok Chang - 2019 - Synthese 196 (8):3139-3161.
    In this paper we consider the problem of how to measure the strength of statistical evidence from the perspective of evidence amalgamation operations. We begin with a fundamental measurement amalgamation principle : for any measurement, the inputs and outputs of an amalgamation procedure must be on the same scale, and this scale must have a meaningful interpretation vis a vis the object of measurement. Using the p value as a candidate evidence measure, we examine various commonly used approaches to amalgamation (...)
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  • The resisted rise of randomisation in experimental design: British agricultural science, c.1910–1930.Dominic Berry - 2015 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 37 (3):242-260.
    The most conspicuous form of agricultural experiment is the field trial, and within the history of such trials, the arrival of the randomised control trial is considered revolutionary. Originating with R.A. Fisher within British agricultural science in the 1920s and 30s, the RCT has since become one of the most prodigiously used experimental techniques throughout the natural and social sciences. Philosophers of science have already scrutinised the epistemological uniqueness of RCTs, undermining their status as the ‘gold standard’ in experimental design. (...)
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  • Randomization and Rules for Causal Inferences in Biology: When the Biological Emperor (Significance Testing) Has No Clothes.Kristin Shrader-Frechette - 2011 - Biological Theory 6 (2):154-161.
    Why do classic biostatistical studies, alleged to provide causal explanations of effects, often fail? This article argues that in statistics-relevant areas of biology—such as epidemiology, population biology, toxicology, and vector ecology—scientists often misunderstand epistemic constraints on use of the statistical-significance rule (SSR). As a result, biologists often make faulty causal inferences. The paper (1) provides several examples of faulty causal inferences that rely on tests of statistical significance; (2) uncovers the flawed theoretical assumptions, especially those related to randomization, that likely (...)
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  • Accuracy and Interpretability: Struggling with the Epistemic Foundations of Machine Learning-Generated Medical Information and Their Practical Implications for the Doctor-Patient Relationship.Florian Funer - 2022 - Philosophy and Technology 35 (1):1-20.
    The initial successes in recent years in harnessing machine learning technologies to improve medical practice and benefit patients have attracted attention in a wide range of healthcare fields. Particularly, it should be achieved by providing automated decision recommendations to the treating clinician. Some hopes placed in such ML-based systems for healthcare, however, seem to be unwarranted, at least partially because of their inherent lack of transparency, although their results seem convincing in accuracy and reliability. Skepticism arises when the physician as (...)
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  • Non-epistemic values in shaping the parameters for evaluating the effectiveness of candidate vaccines: the case of an Ebola vaccine trial.Joby Varghese - 2021 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (2):1-15.
    This paper examines the case of Ebola, ça Suffit trial which was conducted in Guinea during Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in 2015. I demonstrate that various non-epistemic considerations may legitimately influence the criteria for evaluating the efficacy and effectiveness of a candidate vaccine. Such non-epistemic considerations, which are social, ethical, and pragmatic, can be better placed and addressed in scientific research by appealing to non-epistemic values. I consider two significant features any newly developed vaccine should possess; (1) the duration (...)
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  • Do the numbers speak for themselves? A critical analysis of procedural objectivity in psychotherapeutic efficacy research.Femke L. Truijens - 2017 - Synthese 194 (12):4721-4740.
    Psychotherapy research is known for its pursuit of evidence-based treatment. Psychotherapeutic efficacy is assessed by calculation of aggregated differences between pre treatment- and post treatment symptom levels. As this ‘gold standard methodology’ is regarded as ‘procedurally objective’, the efficacy number that results from the procedure is taken as a valid indicator of treatment efficacy. However, I argue that the assumption of procedural objectivity is not justified, as the methodology is build upon a problematic numerical basis. I use an empirical case (...)
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  • Social values and scientific evidence: The case of the HPV vaccines.Kristen Intemann & Inmaculada de Melo-Martín - 2010 - Biology and Philosophy 25 (2):203-213.
    Several have argued that the aims of scientific research are not always independent of social and ethical values. Yet this is often assumed only to have implications for decisions about what is studied, or which research projects are funded, and not for methodological decisions or standards of evidence. Using the case of the recently developed HPV vaccines, we argue that the social aims of research can also play important roles in justifying decisions about (1) how research problems are defined in (...)
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  • What’s Going to Happen to Me? Prognosis in the Face of Uncertainty.Daniele Chiffi & Mattia Andreoletti - 2019 - Topoi 40 (2):319-326.
    Reasoning in medicine requires the critical use of a clinical methodology whose validity must be evaluated as well as its limits. In the last decade, an increasing amount of evidence has shown severe limitations and flaws in the conduct of prognostic studies. The main reason behind this fact is that prognostic judgments are at high risk of error. In this paper we investigate the pragmatic and illocutionary aspects of different forms of linguistic acts and judgments involved in clinical practice. More (...)
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  • Method Pluralism, Method Mismatch, & Method Bias.Adrian Currie & Shahar Avin - 2019 - Philosophers' Imprint 19.
    Pluralism about scientific method is more-or-less accepted, but the consequences have yet to be drawn out. Scientists adopt different methods in response to different epistemic situations: depending on the system they are interested in, the resources at their disposal, and so forth. If it is right that different methods are appropriate in different situations, then mismatches between methods and situations are possible. This is most likely to occur due to method bias: when we prefer a particular kind of method, despite (...)
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  • Clinical Equipoise and Moral Leeway: An Epistemological Stance.Daniele Chiffi & Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen - 2019 - Topoi 38 (2):447-456.
    Clinical equipoise has been proposed as an ethical principle relating uncertainty and moral leeway in clinical research. Although CE has traditionally been indicated as a necessary condition for a morally justified introduction of a new RCT, questions related to the interpretation of this principle remain woefully open. Recent proposals to rehabilitate CE have divided the bioethical community on its ethical merits. This paper presents a new argument that brings out the epistemological difficulties we encounter in justifying CE as a principle (...)
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  • The application of Evidence-Based Medicine methodologies in sports science: problems and solutions.William Levack-Payne - 2022 - Dissertation, University of Kent
    This thesis analyses the use of 'Evidence-Based' methodologies of evidence assessment and intervention and policy design from medicine, and their use in sport and exercise science. It argues that problems exist with the application of Evidence-Based methodologies in sports science, meaning that the quality of evidence used to inform decision-making is lower than is often assumed. This thesis also offers realistic solutions to these problems, broadly arguing for the importance of taking evidence from mechanistic studies seriously, in addition to evidence (...)
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  • A Challenge for Evidence-Based Policy.Adam La Caze & Mark Colyvan - 2017 - Axiomathes 27 (1):1-13.
    Evidence-based policy has support in many areas of government and in public affairs more generally. In this paper we outline what evidence-based policy is, then we discuss its strengths and weaknesses. In particular, we argue that it faces a serious challenge to provide a plausible, over-arching account of evidence. We contrast evidence-based policy with evidence-based medicine, especially the role of evidence in assessing the effectiveness of medicines. The evidence required for policy decisions does not easily lend itself to randomized controlled (...)
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  • Embracing complexity: theory, cases and the future of bioethics.James Wilson - 2014 - Monash Bioethics Review 32 (1-2):3-21.
    This paper reflects on the relationship between theory and practice in bioethics, by using various concepts drawn from debates on innovation in healthcare research—in particular debates around how best to connect up blue skies ‘basic’ research with practical innovations that can improve human lives. It argues that it is a mistake to assume that the most difficult and important questions in bioethics are the most abstract ones, and also a mistake to assume that getting clear about abstract cases will automatically (...)
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  • Two Strands of Field Experiments in Economics: A Historical-Methodological Analysis.Michiru Nagatsu & Judith Favereau - 2020 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 50 (1):45-77.
    While the history and methodology of laboratory experiments in economics have been extensively studied by philosophers, those of field experiments have not attracted much attention until recently. What is the historical context in which field experiments have been advocated? And what are the methodological rationales for conducting experiments in the field as opposed to in the lab? This article addresses these questions by combining historical and methodological perspectives. In terms of history, we show that the movement toward field experiments in (...)
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  • An Epistemic Analysis of the Precautionary Principle.Barbara Osimani - unknown
    The paper addresses charges of risk and loss aversion as well as of irrationality directed against the precautionary principle, by providing an epistemic analysis of its specific role in the safety law system. In particular, I contend that: 1) risk aversion is not a form of irrational or biased behaviour; 2) both risk and loss aversion regard the form of the utility function, whereas PP rather regards the information on which to base the decision; 3) thus PP has formally nothing (...)
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  • (1 other version)Hunting side effects and explaining them: should we reverse evidence hierarchies upside down? [REVIEW]Barbara Osimani - 2013 - Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice (2):1-18.
    The problem of collecting, analyzing and evaluating evidence on adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is an example of the more general class of epistemological problems related to scientific inference and prediction, as well as a central problem of the health-care practice. Philosophical discussions have critically analysed the methodological pitfalls and epistemological implications of evidence assessment in medicine, however they have mainly focused on evidence of treatment efficacy. Most of this work is devoted to statistical methods of causal inference with a special (...)
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  • Fairness in the Field: The Ethics of Resource Allocation in Randomized Controlled Field Experiments.Margarita S. Rayzberg - 2019 - Science, Technology, and Human Values 44 (3):371-398.
    Many in the international development community have embraced the randomized controlled field experiment, akin to a biomedical clinical trial for social interventions, as the new “gold evidential standard” in program impact evaluation. In response, critics have called upon the method’s advocates to consider the moral dimensions of randomization, leading to a debate about the method’s ethics. My research intervenes in this debate by empirically investigating how researchers manage the perception of randomization in the field. Without the possibility of a placebo, (...)
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  • Questions of evidence in evidence-based policy.Eleonora Montuschi - 2009 - Axiomathes 19 (4):425-439.
    Evidence-based approaches to policy-making are growing in popularity. A generally embraced view is that with the appropriate evidence at hand, decision and policy making will be optimal, legitimate and publicly accountable. In practice, however, evidence-based policy making is constrained by a variety of problems of evidence. Some of these problems will be explored in this article, in the context of the debates on evidence from which they originate. It is argued that the source of much disagreement might be a failure (...)
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