ברשותך, אני מעתיק פה הודעה שכתבתי בדיון דומה
מי שלדעתי כתב מאד יפה על המחקר הזה- על מה שאפשר ועל מה שאי אפשר להסיק ממנו הם ה...מחברים של המחקר.
זה המשפט המסכם של ה- summary של המחקר:
The chief purpose is to describe the wide range of differences between different counties in lifestyles and disease-specific mortality rates in rural China, rather than to analyse differences between counties in search of direct evidence of causes. A few of the "ecological" (i.e. geographic) correlations of particular factors with particular diseases do yield good evidence of causality, but the real importance of this study is purely descriptive: better appreciation of the extraordinarily wide range of lifestyles and of disease rates across different Chinese counties will lead to more specific studies.
מה עושים עם משפט כזה? זה כבר תלוי בקורא.
למי שיש קצת יותר כוח לקרוא אני מצרף את הקטע הבא שבו הם כותבים בזהירות רבה עד כמה חשוב להיזהר בפירושים מוטעים ועם זאת, כמו בכל מחקר- תמיד יש מה ללמוד.
All, of course, is not gold that glitters statistically, and
while the fresh eyes of young epidemiologists may be inspired by
some highly significant geographic correlation that their relatively
jaded seniors may dismiss as an artefact, it has to be remembered
that even real geographic correlations are difficult to interpret
reliably; moreover (though perhaps less importantly), even some "pvalues" of less than one in a thousand will inevitably have occurred
just by chance, when so many correlations have been calculated.
Conversely, some expected correlations may not have been seen
because of chance, or because of geographic differences in
diagnostic accuracy, changes over time, incomplete information, or
because the real geographic variation in some important causes (for
example, blood pressure or smoking) may be much less than that in
other, as yet unidentified, causes. This is no criticism; only a
reminder of the danger of superficial examination and the need for
thoughtful scientific judgement. In other words, the information
provided here, like all "ecological" data, has to be interpreted in the
light of other knowledge. With this proviso in mind, the content of
the work will provide for the discerning reader some of the most
stimulating and potentially productive observations on patterns of
geographic variation ever to have been brought together in a single
medical text
יש כאלו שיתמקדו ב- "מעט הקורלציות האקולוגיות (קרי גאוגרפיות) של פקטורים מסויימים כן מעידים על causality.
יש כאלו שיתמקדו בעיקר המחקר.
