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Re:Registered clinical trials make positive findings vanish by bunderbunder on Tuesday August 18, 2015 @05:36PM (#10082379)
So perhaps it's worthwhile to trot out the idea of exploratory vs. confirmatory research.

In exploratory research you collect a bunch of data, and then mine it for interesting associations that might merit further study. It's an essential part of the scientific process, but anything you find from doing it needs to be treated as extremely tentative because it's liable to produce spurious results at least as often as it finds genuine effects.

But that's not what this paper's talking about. It's talking about experiments that are being used to support the approval of new treatments and drugs. That's confirmatory research. In that realm you absolutely must paint the target on the wall before you throw your darts.

Re:Registered clinical trials make positive findings vanish by jsprogrammer on Tuesday August 18, 2015 @05:41PM (#10082407)
Those are ways of looking at it, but experiments have definite structures and that structure can be exploited to create experiments that potentially reveal more information than another experiment.

If the experiment is constructed correctly, it can support validation of multiple hypotheses.

I would completely believe that most experimentation being performed currently is not structured to make further exploitation possible.

Re:Registered clinical trials make positive findings vanish by nitrogen on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @04:19AM (#10084227)
I would completely believe that most experimentation being performed currently is not structured to make further exploitation possible.

Could you provide an example of an experimental structure that is immune to the statistics being discussed?

Re:Registered clinical trials make positive findings vanish by jsprogrammer on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @03:46PM (#10087961)
I should have clarified that statement as I don't think it's quite correct.

It should read:

I would completely believe that most experimentation being performed currently is not structured to make further exploitation, of the type desired/wished, possible.

There are almost certainly facts available that are not discovered/discussed from past experiments. Many of them are likely trivial and/or not what researchers would wish or hope that their data could tell them. However, they can still be mined.

In any case though, you would still re-run experiments to further validate/reject the hypotheses. That is simply basic science.