Can Randomized Control Trials Be Randomized?

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Cosey: You simply can't do a randomized study on breast feeding. Like, you can't tell women that they should or should not bress feed their children. So i feel like, you know, either we say wholesale, we're not going to be able to do any analysis of the relative benefits,. Or we have to ask these really hard questions on observational data. Coseh: I think maybe you could design a sudy where you try to have parents who are all ini don’t, i really don's how you would do it.

Our podcast junkie co-host heard the following statement on another podcast a while back when he was out for a jog: "I actually think the word 'uncertainty' is used in English in a very different way than the word 'uncertainty' is used in statistics." He almost ran into a tree (causation is unclear: he's not known for his gross motor skills, which may have been a confounder). Not only is that quote, essentially, the theme for this episode, but the person who said it, Dr. Rebecca Goldin from George Mason University, was our guest! And we are absolutely CERTAIN that it was every bit as enlightening a discussion as it was a fun one! For complete show notes, including links to items mentioned in this episode and a transcript of the show, visit the show page.