Sure, But What Does It Predict?
He takes a bite of his bacon cheeseburger, “Medical providers don’t know how science works.” “Tell me about it!” I’m having dinner in a noisy sports bar in the Midwest with an applied mathematician with ties...
Category: Critical Thinking
Treating Ghosts
A common argument that I hear is, “Since pain is a subjective interpretation, who cares how it improves?” The reasoning goes that the pain is real to the patient, so if a treatment makes improvement...
It’s Magic!
“I see you have a deck of cards. Go ahead and shuffle them in any way you would like then hand me the deck.” You look at your deck of cards, a deck your...
What Is Your Razor?
“Often myths arise because a single claim or research finding has particular intuitive appeal. The claim makes sense, it supports a popular argument, and soon it is cemented as taken-for-granted fact even though its evidence base...
Doesn’t the Emperor have some nice new clothes?
In The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, the Emperor hires two weavers to make him a new suit of clothing. The weavers provide no actual clothes but swindle the Emperor by telling him that the “fabric” is...
Is pain what brought the patient in? Kind of, but not exactly…
Many times when I’m discussing placebo and specific effects, physical therapists will say, “The patient doesn’t care. They just want less pain. We should give them less pain even if it’s temporary and the treatment...
What Is Science and Why Do Medical Providers Suck At It?
It has been said that medicine skipped The Enlightenment since it was already a fully established profession at that time. Where the likes of Newton, Hooke, Huygens, etc. evolved “Natural Philosophy” into the sciences of physics,...
How to Fool a Smart Person
Wisdom is the love of truth. Intelligence and spiritedness can exist without it. Without wisdom, if some proposition floods their sense of beauty, they will believe it with all their heart and soul, and...
What Comedy Can Teach Us About Critical Thinking
Over the years I have learned to use sense of humor as a litmus test for critical thinking. When I meet someone who takes everything very seriously and lacks any kind of sense of...
Staying Current
Hands down the most common question I field is this: How does one stay current on the research? The answer is easy. Read everything that has ever been published from cover to cover, analyzing the...