S
SMS
Guest
gds wrote:
> OK here we go back to implied character smear rather than arguing the
> issue. That is usually the tactic of folks who have no proof so need to
> displace the argument.
Whatever. Such character smears say a lot more about the smearer, than
the smearee.
> Let's be clear. No one, on either side of the debate, has been able to
> point to a prospective, population based study, designed with an "a
> priori" null hypothesis to test helmet efficacy. That would be the
> "gold standard" to be able to argue persuasively one way or the other.
Yes, if you want to look at efficacy over a population, what you say is
true. However if you simply want to look at how helmet wearers versus
non-helmet wearers fare in accidents, that data is readily available. Of
course there will be claims that such data is suspect because of risk
compensation, etc.
> The helmet sceptics keeping quoting the flaws of studies that show
> helmets to be efective and counter with citations, which when I review
> them all have serous methodological flaws. To everyone's credit no one
> disputs the existance of the flaws but some do seem to ignore the
> implication of the flaws and continue to quote the results.
This has been going on for as long as I can remember. As an engineer,
it's annoying to see the junk science on population studies, especially
since there are more than a few people that are taken in by it. These
junk science "studies" attempt to create "debaters' points" by looking
at two variables, without understanding (or understanding but ignoring)
the fact that there really is no correlation due to other variables that
they don't look at, or don't have data for.
> We should all understand that if a study has a serious flaw then the
> finidngs are suspect no matter how large the study.
It's more than that. A "study" is not counting the number of cyclists
that pass by a specific intersection, stating that the numbers are less
than they were a few years before the helmet law went into effect, and
then proclaiming that helmets cause vast number of people to stop
cycling. Yet such "studies" are routinely trotted out.
> OK here we go back to implied character smear rather than arguing the
> issue. That is usually the tactic of folks who have no proof so need to
> displace the argument.
Whatever. Such character smears say a lot more about the smearer, than
the smearee.
> Let's be clear. No one, on either side of the debate, has been able to
> point to a prospective, population based study, designed with an "a
> priori" null hypothesis to test helmet efficacy. That would be the
> "gold standard" to be able to argue persuasively one way or the other.
Yes, if you want to look at efficacy over a population, what you say is
true. However if you simply want to look at how helmet wearers versus
non-helmet wearers fare in accidents, that data is readily available. Of
course there will be claims that such data is suspect because of risk
compensation, etc.
> The helmet sceptics keeping quoting the flaws of studies that show
> helmets to be efective and counter with citations, which when I review
> them all have serous methodological flaws. To everyone's credit no one
> disputs the existance of the flaws but some do seem to ignore the
> implication of the flaws and continue to quote the results.
This has been going on for as long as I can remember. As an engineer,
it's annoying to see the junk science on population studies, especially
since there are more than a few people that are taken in by it. These
junk science "studies" attempt to create "debaters' points" by looking
at two variables, without understanding (or understanding but ignoring)
the fact that there really is no correlation due to other variables that
they don't look at, or don't have data for.
> We should all understand that if a study has a serious flaw then the
> finidngs are suspect no matter how large the study.
It's more than that. A "study" is not counting the number of cyclists
that pass by a specific intersection, stating that the numbers are less
than they were a few years before the helmet law went into effect, and
then proclaiming that helmets cause vast number of people to stop
cycling. Yet such "studies" are routinely trotted out.