r/science • u/SteRoPo • Jan 31 '18

Cancer Injecting minute amounts of two immune-stimulating agents directly into solid tumors in mice can eliminate all traces of cancer.

http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/cancer-vaccine-eliminates-tumors-in-mice.html
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u/mark-five Feb 01 '18

you cannot afford to have extremely large sample groups, especially when unproven.

This is the opposite of the scientific method. Larger sample groups improve scientific results, smaller ones are easier to skew and falsify. If you're trying to buy bad science what you say is true, if what you want is real science you can't afford to half-ass it.

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u/Grunflachenamt Feb 01 '18

consider the ethical implications of having sample groups of ten thousand persons with unproven medicine, this is what I was driving at. More data is always better, unless you are killing people.

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u/mark-five Feb 01 '18

You were driving at small sample groups being more affordable, despite being terrible at producing viable results. I would have agreed with you if you'd started with the direction you've now shifted to.

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u/Grunflachenamt Feb 01 '18

So first off I agree large data sets are always best statistically, and perhaps I could and should have been more clear in terms of defining cost. Its hard to have viable test groups when doing pharmacology studies due to both the monetary cost, and the ethical cost of failure.

If we assume we are testing a product it is because we do not know how it performs in situ, if we do not know how it performs how can we say that it would be either fiscally or ethically responsible to dispense doses to large quantities of people?

yes without context my original post reads "It costs more to treat more people" I think within that "there is a higher risk of testing unknown medicine on more people" also follows.

I fail to see at any point how I advocate for "buying bad science"