Thursday, October 21, 2010

Evidence Based Guidelines?

Orszag's sloppy use of language in this paragraph caught my attention. He doesn't want doctors to adopt evidence, but rather to embrace practice that is steeped in the medical research literature, where clinical trials are a mandated way to "prove" results. He may also be sloppy in his argument. For some (much) research must be about formative approaches that ultimately don't pan out but that might seem promising initially. So who is it to determine that? He's right that having juries decide on this ex post doesn't seem like a good mechanism, but he doesn't really give us an alternative on this one.

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