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Declining trust in Zeus is a technology

experimental-history.com · 2,191 words · saved by 1 readers

Randomized-controlled trials only caught on about 80 years ago, and whenever I think about that, I have to sit down and catch my breath for a while. The thing everybody agrees is the “gold standard” of evidence, the thing the FDA requires before it will legally allow you to sell a drug—that thing is younger than my grandparents. There are a few records of things that kind of look like randomized-controlled trials throughout history, but people didn’t really appreciate the importance of RCTs until 1948, when the British Medical Research Council published a trial on streptomycin for tuberculosis. Humans have possessed the methods of randomization for thousands of years—dice, coins, the casting of lots—and we’ve been trying to cure diseases for as long as we’ve been human. Why did it take us so long to put them together? I think the answer is: first, we had to stop trusting Zeus. To us, coin flips are random (“Heads: I go first. Tails: you go first.”)1. But to an ancient human, coin flips

Declining trust in Zeus is a technology OR: leaving the land of tiny muffins Adam Mastroianni Jan 31, 2024 289 85 37 Share Article voiceover 0:00 -13:34 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. photo cred: my dad Randomized-controlled trials only caught on about 80 years ago, and whenever I think about that, I have to sit down and catch my breath for a while. The thing everybody agrees is the “gold standard” of evidence, the thing the FDA requires before it will legally allow you to sell a drug—that thing is younger than my grandparents . There are a few records of thin

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