FUCK THAT WHERE'S MY BIBEL

Not really as definitive as claiming you're right without any evidence, but I guess it could work.

I think this is a cool sift, but can someone explain why it is so popular.

It's explaining a concept of scientific experimentation in plain and simple terms. It's stuff people need to know in an easy to digest format.

>> ^longde:
I think this is a cool sift, but can someone explain why it is so popular.

This is the only way currently to make sure there is no human effect on the results. When done correctly, this method of testing, ensures no one can tamper with the outcome, be it a drug company executive, a doctor conducting the experiment, a patient receiving the drug and so on.

By giving all patient groups identical looking treatment, you remove any possibility that the patients might react differently, by having a control group receiving a placebo (and not knowing they're on a placebo) you can measure how much of the success of your treatment is caused by the placebo effect. If you see the group receiving the new drug is improving by the same amount as the control group, you know the new drug does nothing.

By keeping the examining doctors in the dark, you eliminate the possibility that they will treat patients differently, knowingly or unknowingly, either by accidentally letting them know they're on the placebo, by giving less attention to people on the placebo and so on. Results remain impartial. The same applies to the statisticians. Only after the results are final, everybody can finally find out who was on what drug, and what effect they had.

And finally, by allowing the process to be repeated multiple times by different companies and agencies (FDA etc), you make sure no drug company can manufacture a study result without being debunked later by someone else. Executives have no effect on the outcome, and everybody stays honest.

>> ^longde:
I think this is a cool sift, but can someone explain why it is so popular.


Science + animation = win

Brian Dunning... keep up the great work!

www.skeptoid.com

"Now that I've explained triple blind experiments, I must get back to turning dials on this sciencey-looking apparatus."

And in a quadruple blind experiment, the test subjects, testers, and statisticians are all vision impaired.