Mervyn Susser and Zena Stein
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195300666
- eISBN:
- 9780199863754
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195300666.003.0018
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter discusses natural experiments and contrived experiments in epidemiology. Some epidemiologists have remained cautious about experimental intervention. Perhaps they have been deterred on ...
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This chapter discusses natural experiments and contrived experiments in epidemiology. Some epidemiologists have remained cautious about experimental intervention. Perhaps they have been deterred on debatable ethical grounds, or perhaps they have been reluctant to sacrifice generalizability and representativeness for specificity city and internal validity. Aside from the ethical questions always present, a number of other considerations weigh. In time, effort, and expense, the scale of a preventive trial must be thought of in much the same terms as a longitudinal study. As with cohort studies, these are best justified when there is a closely specified hypothesis, and when the same answer cannot readily be obtained by other means. It goes without saying that both the intervention and the outcome must be well defined and measurable.Less
This chapter discusses natural experiments and contrived experiments in epidemiology. Some epidemiologists have remained cautious about experimental intervention. Perhaps they have been deterred on debatable ethical grounds, or perhaps they have been reluctant to sacrifice generalizability and representativeness for specificity city and internal validity. Aside from the ethical questions always present, a number of other considerations weigh. In time, effort, and expense, the scale of a preventive trial must be thought of in much the same terms as a longitudinal study. As with cohort studies, these are best justified when there is a closely specified hypothesis, and when the same answer cannot readily be obtained by other means. It goes without saying that both the intervention and the outcome must be well defined and measurable.
John Bende
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226761473
- eISBN:
- 9780226761466
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226761466.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter argues that the British novelists of the early eighteenth century adopted three elements of natural philosophy in fashioning their narratives: surrogate witnessing, the contrived ...
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This chapter argues that the British novelists of the early eighteenth century adopted three elements of natural philosophy in fashioning their narratives: surrogate witnessing, the contrived experiment, and the induction-based reasoning that could translate the findings of a single experiment into truths of general validity. It shows how early novelists fashioned printed texts into experiments that mediated different kinds of knowledge as a means of mediating the fictional and the real. The tools described both confer experience to the fictional characters and advance the judgment of both characters and readers.Less
This chapter argues that the British novelists of the early eighteenth century adopted three elements of natural philosophy in fashioning their narratives: surrogate witnessing, the contrived experiment, and the induction-based reasoning that could translate the findings of a single experiment into truths of general validity. It shows how early novelists fashioned printed texts into experiments that mediated different kinds of knowledge as a means of mediating the fictional and the real. The tools described both confer experience to the fictional characters and advance the judgment of both characters and readers.
