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On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 09:34:15AM +0000, bas wrote: > >Placebo is just another name for operator bias. Bias occurs whenever > >anyone involved in making the judgement have any knowledge of what has > >changed between the various times at which a judgement is made. Bias is > >unavoidable; you can only compensate for it, never avoid it. > So, at the end of the day we are all in a dreamy state where any > type of upgrade is the placebo effect,, a new 24" wide screen lcd > monitor isnt really any better than a 15" crt. That depends what you mean by better. If you mean simply bigger, then no, that's something that's easily measurable. Same for power consumption. However, if you were to claim that the image was sharper, that it displayed colours better, and so on, then though it seems likely to me that this is true, I'd still say you'd need to test it. (If you can test something without relying on human senses and judgement, then I suspect you don't need to worry about double-blind trials. As soon as you bring humans into the equation, though, you need to be careful.) > >Rubbish - you both knew the nature of the changes, the placebo effect > >had a significant effect upon both judgements. > > > heheh, would agree if it was a situation where he wanted the > stylus,, but he didn't, so im afraid you are the one speaking > rubbish (scientist or not).your reasoning is a little bit like my > oldest lads, he has a degree in chemistry. You underestimate the placebo effect. It doesn't require you to think that it will be better, merely to think it will be different. There are recorded examples of a "nocebo" effect, where people experience side-effects associated with tthe drug they think they're being given, evenn when they're only being given sugar pills, for example. There are also examples of the placebo effect varying depending on what the doctor thought he was giving the patient, even when all the patients were given the same thing. > >Science has proved again and again that if the judgement is made with > >knowledge of when the change was made, the judgement will reinforce the > >beliefs of those making the judgement with a statistically significant > >effect. > > > >Double-blind randomised trials are the only rigorous method of > >compensating for the ever present placebo effect, no amount of bluff > >and blustering will change the reality. > blimey, im glad you don't work for me with such shuttered vision > when a given upgrade is so blindingly obvious. Years of scientific knowledge is "shuttered"? The change is "blindingly obvious" to you, but you know a change has been made. Would it be blindingly obvious if you don't know there's been a change? Possibly not, and that's what a double-blind trial will test. -- Benjamin M. AâLee || mail: bma@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx web: http://bma.subvert.org.uk/ || gpg: 0x166891C7
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