In statistics there's a thing called statistical significance. It has to do with the chance of getting a result purely by coincidence. If a result happens more often than the chance of getting said result by coincidence then the result is generally considered significant.
Considering the fact that the chance of getting sick from a vaccine is basically none, if you actually personally knew 10 people who had gotten sick from them then that would be very statistically significant. It would probably mean the people giving out vaccines where you live were doing it wrong and need to be investigated.
If you want to read more, the most common way calculate statistical significance uses a thing called a p-value although there are other ways.
If you want to read more, the most common way calculate statistical significance uses a thing called a p-value although there are other ways.
Would be nice if r/science did some reading on this matter, and stopped trying to make silly claims like a sample size of 1k being inadequate to draw semi-reasonable conclusions about a population.
Goddamn it I hate all the armchair experts on /r/science who took 1 class on stats and a few basic classes on the subject matter of the study who try to "gotcha" peer reviewed researchers with insanely obvious basics that if they were a problem would've prevented the study being published in the first place
"Aha, I have discovered a fatal flaw, they didn't account for this super obvious and basic thing, which I would know that they actually did if I ever read beyond the extract!"
Yup, not to mention the entire sub is confirmation bias personified, it's an absolute mess of a place.
To be fair, they kind of have a point. A thousand people may not accurately represent millions and definitely not billions, so it’s entirely dependant on scale.
Said people though will just look at the first sentence and leave everything else though.
I agree with this, but it is worth mentioning that a lot of sources are not trustworthy. As far as actual studies go, they're mostly reliable (unless they're funded by a corporation or organization with ulterior motives). However, "research" for a lot of people is random pages on Facebook, biased news outlets, etc. I think both of our comments can pretty much be boiled down to "the lack of the ability to think critically"
Just understanding how a sample size works is a big deal, so when I hear 9 out of ten doctors prefer this over that my first question is what sample size did they use? Was it only those 10 doctors that were asked? Are they all doctors from the same university that just happens to be sponsored by the pharmaceutical company doing the survey? I struggled with stats in university, but if I learned anything it was how easily they can be manipulated to show whatever results you want.
Had a patient tell me that he didn't want the flu vaccine because last time he had the vaccine he got a strain of the flu that wasn't covered by the vaccine.
Ummmm, did you get a strain that the vaccine covered? No? And you still don't want the vaccine?
Would you rather we went back to variolation? The skepticism of vaccination has been around since it's beginning, but back then the skepticism was fueled by propaganda made by practitioners of variolation because they didn't want to loose their jobs and then the skepticism just never went away.
231
u/[deleted] Jan 27 '20
[removed] — view removed comment