Causal Hypotheses in Medicine — John Worrall / Serious Science

Professor of Philosophy of Science John Worrall on the difference between correlation and causation, controlled experiments and the placebo effect.

Read the full text on our website: http://serious-science.org/causal-hyp...

'It wouldn't be a very good test of the theory that giving people regular doses of vitamin C causes relief from colds if you gave a whole bunch of people who was suffering from colds vitamin C for a week, and then they all recovered. You know from natural history colds do generally clear up within a week in any event. So you need the contrast in order to establish causation.'

John Worrall, Professor of Philosophy of Science, the London School of Economics and Political Science

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