Re:Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data...
by KennyBlanken on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @09:13PM
(#28624132)
> I've found the best thing is to take a group of aggressive smart grad students and have them tear every paper apart
That's a pretty passable simplification of meta-analysis studies.
Learning how to filter literature is non-trivial and I don't think very many people do it successfully. I've found the best thing is to take a group of aggressive smart grad students and have them tear every paper apart until I'm convinced there are no basic technical errors, and the conclusion is supported by the evidence. Then and only then, would I care that the methods were incomplete because I'd be ready to run a replication experiment, and many of my replications failed because the methods section was not sufficient (missing steps, misleading instructions, challenging step).