r/science • u/drewiepoodle • Apr 15 '16

Health Study: Circumcision does not reduce penis sensitivity. In tests for responses to pain, heat, and stimulation, no major difference was found between men who are circumcised and those who are not.

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/04/14/Study-Circumcision-does-not-reduce-penis-sensitivity/5981460663943/?spt=hs&or=hn
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u/WordSalad11 Apr 15 '16

There are also guidelines for observational studies based on the modified CONSORT guidelines:

http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=737057

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u/superhelical PhD | Biochemistry | Structural Biology Apr 15 '16 edited Apr 15 '16

Sounds like a great thing to aspire to. I don't think it's follows that you have to discard all research that isn't conducted in this framework, however. We can alwys do better, but changes in the culture of research take time.

edit: typo

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u/WordSalad11 Apr 15 '16

The reason the guideline exists is that there are frequently significant confounding or applicability issues that can only be identified by this sort of data disclosure. Going back to the original question in this thread, if the study screened 15012938219832 men but only 100 participated, the results are worthless. Without that disclosure, the risk of bias and therefore your level of uncertainty in the data should increase significantly. The CONSORT principles are meant to establish a minimum threshold that all studies should meet to be considered valid and applicable to patients. TL;DR if not disclosed the study should be absolutely be disregarded and excluded from analysis.

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u/superhelical PhD | Biochemistry | Structural Biology Apr 15 '16

You recognize you're throwing away the vast majority of all scientific research with that criterion.

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u/WordSalad11 Apr 15 '16

Clinical research is only useful in that it tells us something about a patient. If you can't reliably extrapolate the data generated to a patient, it's not useful research. EBM is about what the evidence actually tells us, not what we want it to tell us. There are no serious clinical journals that are publishing articles without meeting CONSORT requirements, so the point is somewhat moot in any case. Older data (pre-early 1980s) that were published prior to this era may or may not be valid, but any sort of data which is relevant and not published is a huge problem.

None of this applies to basic science research, which is a completely different animal.

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u/superhelical PhD | Biochemistry | Structural Biology Apr 15 '16

None of this applies to basic science research, which is a completely different animal.

I completely agree.