Abstract
The philosophy and ethics of controlled clinical trials was the subject of a classical lecture given by Sir Austin Bradford Hill to the Royal College of Physicians in London in 1963 (Hill 1963). Six months later Sir Austin’s Talmudic arguments were stridently challenged in a lead editorial in the British Medical Journal (1963), and debate on the subject continues to the present. Why does this subject evoke such intense reactions? I believe it is because it is such a clear example of a more general conceptual difference between opinions and conclusions drawn from general experience and nonsystematic observations and those based on scientific principles and logical reasoning. In medicine the conflict is especially sharp since it concerns the “art and science” of medicine on which the clinical decisions and judgments of the physician are made.
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© 1984 Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg
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Barnett, H.L. (1984). Philosophy and Ethics of Multicenter International Controlled Clinical Trials in Children. In: Brodehl, J., Ehrich, J.H.H. (eds) Paediatric Nephrology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69863-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69863-7_5
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