Jousting with the Lancet: Pajamas Media Interviews Professor Gilbert Burnham
“It’s almost counterintuitive”, says Warren Joseph. I don’t get the “almost”. The whole problem here is that this study argues with people’s gut feelings; they can’t believe it’s that bad. People who understand epidemiology & statistics (a massively counterintuitive discipline) do not share their contempt.
If gut feelings didn’t lie, there would be no need for science. We would intuitively know the answer to any question we had a gut feeling about. If you don’t believe that your guts can lie, try flying an airplane in a big black cloud.
To compound our problems, gut feelings can be generated by past experience, social programming, etc.
A peer reviewed, scientific study is about as far as you can get from gut feelings, political or otherwise, & that’s a good thing. It’s what we pay those guys for.
