Tram Town
Sunday, July 11, 2004
| Category: Science Sir Austin Bradford Hill was one of people who originally found strong evidence of cigarette smoking greatly increasing the risk of lung cancer. In this famous essay he sets out a mechanism for establishing causality. It's a very worthwhile read. UPDATE: I was looking for this essay because I mistakenly thought Sir ABH was responsible for the dictum: "Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence". In the best traditions of The Age newspaper, I was wrong. "Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence" is known as Sagan's Balance but at least one person thinks it should be called Jefferson's Balance. In searching for this stuff I discovered the very disturbing fact that '"crumbly but good" sagan' returned no results in Google. The "crumbly but good moment" was probably the most important moment in the whole Cosmos experience. I also came across an interesting read about Carl Sagan and "science as religion". |
