The Case for Case-Control Studies in Medical Research

While preparing for this day, I have pondered, how can medical statistics help improve the state of medical care? The potential for better medical care is dependent on the scientific temper of our medical profession. The question is how can we improve the scientific temper? The search for evidence is fundamental to the practice of modern day medicine. There is now a movement towards evidence based medicine. But evidence does not come neatly. How do we get past the veil of perception, and how do we tease out reality from illusion? Random noise is a fact of life. We do not have access to all aspects of any experience. Our cognitive stance affects what we perceive and how we process those inputs. Hence, in general, we like to start with skepticism, and look for evidence to improve our understanding. The search for a criterion of truth and knowledge prompted Descartes to start with a system of doubt. Our search for explanations and the quest for knowledge uses strategies, commonly referred to as scientific method. Four key elements of the scientific method are; (a) descriptive, (b) analytic, (c) deductive, and (d) experimental.