The study of human physiology or medical science is difficult to conduct without bias or contradiction. Conducting an experiment that would give clear and unambiguous results is frequently either unethical, impractical or otherwise impossible. We simply can’t do the type of experiment that would give a clear answer to important questions. The void that this creates leads to a difficulty that confuses proper and legitimate understanding. There is great pressure to invent truth and call it evidence when truth can not be determined.
There is a great push for experimental evidence by those who are supported by government grants. This is not the only type of secondary gain in the push for evidence over reason. Research might be used to find information but it might also be used to find disinformation. Disclosure is always incomplete.
The origin of the COVID epidemic was the target of the most ambitious disinformation campaign in medical science. The first people to die were the scientists that worked in this lab. From this, we know where the COVID virus came from. As time wore on the disinformation was overwhelming. As the public were more disinformed by the evidence that was collected and published. This is disinformation which is different from misinformation. Disinformation is malicious and deliberate. Misinformation is well meaning but erroneous. Disinformation often involves taking a simple correct answer. The first people to die worked in the lab. That is simple. If we introduce complexity that the general public will not understand we can then disinform. We need evidence beyond the simple fact that the first people to die worked in the lab. We don’t need any more evidence, the phrase, “we are done”, applies.
There is a struggle to know when scientific reasoning based on anatomy, physiology, biochemistry etc. will produce an expected result or when the complexity of the human body prevents such an approach. There are some spectacular failures of educated rationalization in medicine. The debacle known as VIOXX comes to mind. In the case of a failure of scientific reasoning.,VIOXX was supposed to be better based on a rational approach to the science of cyclo-oxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors. As the human body is extraordinarily complex, what was supposed to work, didn’t. This is common. A drug that lowers cholesterol should improve outcomes like better health and increased longevity. It is easier to believe that it does than to have evidence that it does. How about if we have evidence, maybe good and maybe flawed or biased and want to believe it so much that we call our study “evidence based”. That should do it. There is nobody to verify whatever criteria there are to establish that is is “evidence based” so why not? Declaring that a treatment is “evidence based” does not prevent the introduction of bias or downright misconduct. It sounds good and as long as nobody is really watching and holds us up to criteria that we made up ourselves it is then “evidence based”.
The term “evidence based” is a marketing term. We could call my opinion in this article “evidence based” because I believe in what I have read or experienced is valid and significant. I rely on this evidence that I hold in high esteem a so I admonish my opinion as “evidence based”.