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Comment by AbrahamParangi | Hacker News Reader

The razor to use to determine whether something is actually evidenced based under uncertainty is whether you would follow the same policy if it was your own child.

There are many things that are simply uncertain and “untrue until proven otherwise” isn’t an exclusively optimal policy.

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> The razor to use to determine whether something is actually evidenced based under uncertainty is whether you would follow the same policy if it was your own child.

What? This makes no sense. How do you explain anti-vaxxer parents with this perspective? Parents may feel they know best, but feeling and fact have nothing to do with each other.

It's ok, the strongest defenders of EBM are never going to discover anything worthwhile as they get caught in a loop of "no evidence enough to test" and "no evidence for this because nobody tests it"

Counterpoints: the detractors of this purported loop would likely neither fund the vast amounts of research they’d demand be done nor believe the results if they conflicted with their anecdata. I have yet to see a good faith argument against evidence based method that provides an effective and realistic alternative. Because that would take evidence.

The opposite approach exposes people to a lot of unnecessary and dangerous medical treatment. The evidence based approach has uncovered that stenting doesn't work[1], yet a lot of do something proponents are still installing them at great risk to patients and at great cost to medical systems.

[1] https://lowninstitute.org/stents-dont-work-a-look-back-at-th...

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