And in some positive news — can you imagine those still exist? — the US Food and Drug Agency has issued their draft guidance on decentralized trials (PDF download). America is playing catch-up with the UK in this regard, but better late than never!

Exploring the link between Sickle Cell, α-Thalassemia, P Falciparum Malaria and Burkitt Lymphoma in Africa

• Speakers: Sam Mbulaiteye, MBChB, M.Phil., M.Med.; Swee Lay Thein, B.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.Path., D.Sc., FMedSci
• Wednesday, May 10 2023, 12pm EDT
• Watch here

Diabetes Mellitus: Great Progress; Diabetes: The Marathon of Life

• Speakers: Douglas Melton, PhD; Courtney Duckworth, MD
• Tuesday, May 16 2023, 4pm EDT
• Watch here

Is Cerebrovascular Disease Ever Really Silent? Stroke, Small Vessel Disease, and Cognition

• Speaker: Rebecca F. Gottesman, MD PhD
• Wednesday, May 31, 2023 12pm EDT
• Watch here

The first good one is tomorrow!

Demystifying Medicine - How is the Brain Organized and How Does it Work?

• Speakers: Nelson Spruston, PhD, Janelia HHMI and Marcus Raichle, MD, Washington University
• Tuesday, April 4, 2023, 4:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

Ethics Grand Rounds: Is it Ethical to Appeal to Research Participants’ Altruism?

• Presenter: Beth Kozel MD, PhD Lasker Clinical Research Scholar, NHLBI Discussant: Alex Voorhoeve PhD Head, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, London School of Economics
• Wednesday, April 5, 2023, 12:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

Clinical Center Grand Rounds: From Bench to Bedside: A Translational Approach to Innovation in Research and Treatment of Perinatal Depression

• Speaker: Samantha Meltzer-Brody, MD, MPH, UNC Center for Women’s Mood Disorders, Department of Psychiatry University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Wednesday, April 12, 2023, 12:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

Demystifying Medicine - Fat: Biology and Staying Thin

• Speakers: Aaron Cypess, MD, PhD, NIDDK, NIH and Kevin Hall, PhD, NIDDK, NIH
• Tuesday, April 18, 2023, 4:00:00 PM EDT
• Watch here

A colleague once told me you were never really finished with a manuscript until you well and trully hated it — only then should you submit.

He was right, with a caveat: if you hated it at submission, however will you feel when it comes time for the umpteenth revision?

The Spectator has a profile of Nassim Taleb out today, and it is entertaining enough. E.g.:

Taleb had been busy. He had already published two papers since the new year, on statistical concepts that I asked him to explain to me as if I was five years old, to which he said, “you’re not five years old.”

Any of his 12 conversations with Russ Roberts would, of course, be a better use of your time. And as entertaining!

Thing I thought I’d never write about #2: bias. A brief commentary on unbiased methods, social and otherwise, is out today in Nature’s latest review journal, Nature Reviews Bioengineering.

Thing #1 was, of course, covid-19, but I broke that barrier earlier this year.

The Popperian Podcast:

Interviewing academics, professionals and other experts, The Popperian Podcast is a monthly podcast where Jed Lea-Henry looks into the philosophy and life of Karl Popper.

The latest episode, about medical discovery, pairs nicely with Against Method.

Today’s WaPo:

The Washington Post and KFF surveyed one of the largest randomized samples of U.S. transgender adults to date about their childhoods, feelings and lives.

There is, of course, no such a thing as a randomized sample. Samples are random, trails are randomized. Let’s not present opinion polls as high science.

Nothing beats repetition for reinforcing concepts. This week’s episode of EconTalk began with Megan McArdle describing the Oedipus trap, but ended with a discussion on science and policy that echoed concerns raised in Against Method.

Science is a good servant but a vicious master, and “just following the science” is a recipe for all sorts of disasters.

Did you know that the T in DST stands for Torture? Just ask people with school-age children. It also doesn’t save anything, it shifts hours around, so the S is for Shifting. Only, to be more precise, you should really swap the f with another t.

That’s more like it.

Swatch Internet Time may have been a gimmick, but having a universal time with shifting opening hours (why not wake up at “midnight” and have school and work start at “2am”) would be preferable to… this. That is what, in effect, the strange beasts who like DST are doing, their jobs allowing them to sleep in and start their days whenever the sun actually comes up. No such luck form farmers, bakers, doctors, and most other professions that have to deal with the physical reality.

Science can do many things, but until we all move to an indoor habitat and bask in artificial sunshine it cannot increase the number of daylight hours. Pretending that it can — and codifying it into law — is a triumph of stupidity.