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Pedro M Teixeira

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Category Archives: Must read

Como sei que a Terra é redonda?

26 Thu Nov 2020

Posted by Pedro M Teixeira in Class Content, Must read

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George Orwell, Terra plana

Por: George Orwell
Tradução de Desidério Murcho

Num ou noutro lugar — penso que é no prefácio a Saint Joan — Bernard Shaw comenta que somos hoje mais crédulos e supersticiosos do que o éramos na Idade Média, e como exemplo da credulidade moderna cita a crença muito difundida de que a Terra é redonda. O homem médio, afirma Shaw, não consegue apresentar uma só razão para pensar que a Terra é redonda. Limita-se a engolir esta teoria por haver nela algo que é atraente para a mentalidade do século XX.

Ora, Shaw está a exagerar, mas o que afirma tem algo que se lhe diga, e vale a pena explorar a questão devido à luz que lança sobre o conhecimento moderno. Afinal por que acreditamos efectivamente que a Terra é redonda? Não estou a falar dos poucos milhares de astrónomos, geógrafos, e assim por diante, que poderiam apresentar provas oculares, ou que têm um conhecimento teórico da prova, mas do cidadão comum que lê os jornais, como eu ou você.

No que respeita à teoria da Terra Plana, penso que poderia refutá-la. Se ficarmos junto ao mar num dia com boa luz, consegue-se ver os mastros e chaminés de navios invisíveis que passam ao longo do horizonte. Este fenómeno só pode ser explicado supondo que a superfície da Terra é curva. Mas não se segue que a Terra é esférica. Imagine-se outra teoria, chamada teoria da Terra Oval, que afirma que a Terra tem a forma de um ovo. Que posso dizer contra ela?

Contra o homem da Terra Oval, a primeira carta que posso jogar é a analogia do Sol e da Lua. O homem da Terra Oval responde logo que não sei, pela minha própria observação, que esses corpos são esféricos. Só sei que são redondos, e podem perfeitamente ser discos planos. Não tenho resposta a isto. Além disso, continua ele, que razão tenho para pensar que a Terra tem de ter a mesma forma que o Sol e a Lua? A isto também não posso responder.

A minha segunda carta é a sombra da Terra: quando incide sobre a Lua, durante os eclipses, parece a sombra de um objecto redondo. Mas como sei, exige o homem da Terra Oval, que os eclipses da Lua são causados pela sombra da Terra? A resposta é que não sei, tendo antes tomado às cegas este pedaço de informação de artigos de jornal e opúsculos de ciência.

Derrotado nas trocas menores, jogo agora a minha rainha de trunfo: a opinião dos especialistas. O Astrónomo Real, que tem obrigação de saber, diz-me que a Terra é redonda. O homem da Terra Oval joga o seu rei em cima da minha rainha. Testei eu a afirmação do Astrónomo Real, e saberia sequer como o fazer? Aqui faço uso do meu ás. Sim, conheço um teste. Os astrónomos conseguem prognosticar eclipses, e isto sugere que as suas opiniões sobre o sistema solar são bastante sólidas. Tenho consequentemente justificação para aceitar o que dizem sobre a forma da Terra.

Se o homem da Terra Oval responder — o que penso ser verdade — que os antigos egípcios, que pensavam que o Sol anda à volta da Terra, sabiam também prever eclipses, lá se vai o meu ás. Só me resta uma carta: a navegação. As pessoas velejam à volta do mundo, e chegam aonde querem, fazendo cálculos que presumem que a Terra é esférica. Penso que isto acaba com o homem da Terra Oval, apesar de mesmo assim ele poder talvez ter um qualquer tipo de contra-ataque.

Como se vê, as minhas razões para pensar que a Terra é redonda são muito precárias. Contudo, trata-se de um pedaço excepcionalmente elementar de informação. Na maior parte das outras questões, eu teria apelado muito mais cedo ao especialista, e teria tido menos capacidade para testar as suas proclamações. E a maior parte do nosso conhecimento está neste nível. Não repousa em raciocínio ou experimentação, mas na autoridade. E como poderia ser de outro modo, quando a diversidade de conhecimento é tão vasto que o próprio especialista é um ignoramus mal se afasta da sua própria especialidade? As pessoas, na sua maior parte, se lhes pedissem para provar que a Terra é redonda, nem se dariam ao incómodo de apresentar os fraquíssimos argumentos que esbocei. Começariam por dizer que “toda a gente sabe” que a Terra é redonda, e se insistíssemos, ficariam zangadas. De certo modo Shaw tem razão. Esta é uma época crédula, e o fardo de conhecimento que agora temos de carregar é em parte responsável.

George Orwell – Publicação original Tribune (27 de Dezembro de 1946)

Discrepâncias entre resultados pré-especificados e reportados

15 Fri Feb 2019

Posted by Pedro M Teixeira in Class Content, Escrita científica, Must read, Research

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CONSORT, Trials

A mais recente publicação de Ben Goldacre é um estudo de coorte prospectivo que dá conta da real dimensão do problema das discrepâncias entre os outcomes pré-especifícados (antes do estudo) e os outcomes reportados (após o estudo) em 67 ensaios clínicos publicados num de cinco principais jornais científicos em saúde – New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine.[1] O estudo considera ainda as tentativas de corrigir essas discrepâncias.[2] Todos estes jornais estão publicamente comprometidos com o CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials). Para ler, com preocupação, em duas partes:

1. COMPare: a prospective cohort study correcting and monitoring 58 misreported trials in real time

2. COMPare: Qualitative analysis of researchers’ responses to critical correspondence on a cohort of 58 misreported trials

 

The Global Gender Gap Report

19 Wed Dec 2018

Posted by Pedro M Teixeira in Must read, Research

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Gender Gap, Reports

The World Economic Forum just issued The Global Gender Gap Report and the best-ranked countries are:

GenderGap_2018_2018_top10_global-1.png

The best-ranked countries in western Europe are:

GenderGap_2018_2018_globaltop10_westerneurope-1.png

Progress has been done and there is an improvement to close the gap. However, at this rate, it will take 108 years for the world to close the Gap. In western Europe, it may be about 61 years.

2018_Regions_to_Close_Gap.png

Portugal dropped to the 37th position compared to the 33rd position in 2006. The economic and educational indicators also dropped from the 33rd to the 44th and from the 57th to the 82nd positions respectively. Only the health and survival indicators have improved from the 71st to the 54th position. Regarding gender inequality, we still have a long road ahead of us. You can further explore the data here.

gender gap portugal.jpg

 

They finally did it | Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

17 Mon Dec 2018

Posted by Pedro M Teixeira in Class Content, Must read, Research

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Christmas Pearls, Fun Stuff

A randomized controlled trial about parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft was finally published by Robert W Yeh in BMJ.

Since 2003 Smiths’ Systematic Review that was unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention and thus concluded that the effectiveness of parachutes had not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials, the world was expecting such a trial.

aviao.jpgThe conclusions: ‘Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention. However, the trial was only able to enroll participants on small stationary aircraft on the ground, suggesting cautious extrapolation to high altitude jumps. When beliefs regarding the effectiveness of an intervention exist in the community, randomized trials might selectively enroll individuals with a lower perceived likelihood of benefit, thus diminishing the applicability of the results to clinical practice’.

Scientific Publications | Christmas Pearls

13 Thu Dec 2018

Posted by Pedro M Teixeira in Class Content, Escrita científica, Must read, Research

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Christmas Pearls, Fun Stuff

Several journals have developed a tradition of publishing slightly different papers in their December issues. These papers are intended to either make a provocative statement, making us reflect upon unusual topics, or provide unusual examples of scientific topics. I like to call them Christmas Pearls. This year my favorite Christmas Pearls:

  • by Reidar P. Lystad and Benjamin T. Brown in Injury Epidemiology 2018 5:44 – https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-018-0174-7

“Death is certain, the time is not”: mortality and survival in Game of Thrones

Kaplan-Meier survival analysis with Cox proportional hazard regression modeling was used to quantify survival times and probabilities to identify independent predictors of mortality among ‘important characters’ (n = 330) appearing in Seasons 1 to 7 of Game of Thrones.

Although the statistics are quite sound and the data extensive some remarks are mandatory.

First, resuscitation bias was not considered (e.g. John snow). Neither were white walkers. Not clear what justifies the exclusion of these non-less important characters. From a mixed-methods perspective, white walkers could have participated in a focus group discussion of the results, for example.

Secondly, the effectiveness of wall policies for security purposes is clearly understated.

Finally, the authors conclude:

“There is great potential for preventing violent deaths in the world of Game of Thrones. Stable democratic governments, resilient institutions that deliver public goods, and implementation of evidence-based violence prevention policies can decrease the risk of violent deaths considerably“.

Given that winter is coming this is clearly an unrealistic and utopic worldview of Game of Thrones.

 

  • by Vikas N O’Reilly-Shah, Grant C Lynde and Craig S Jabaley in BMJ 2018; 363 – doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5033

Is it time to start using the emoji in biomedical literature?

 

The lack of standardisation in emoji artwork that may cause ambiguity in interpretation is quite disturbing. Also, the emoji based alternatives to the denotation of statistical significance can’t really apprehend the need to consider the enunciation of the null hypothesis for adequate interpretation of P-values. The smiling-face-with-sunglasses_1f60e.png in a Kolmogorov-Smirnov to check distribution assumptions for parametric testing may be actually hiding

crying_emoji_small_classic_round_sticker-r4c998b077b254fe69908fa4ca57ce521_v9waf_8byvr_540.jpg.

table 01

F8.large.jpg

Research on self-treatment of “writer’s block” – a timeline critical appraisal

05 Fri Oct 2018

Posted by Pedro M Teixeira in Escrita científica, Must read, Opinião, Research

≈ 3 Comments

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Fun Stuff, methods

Research on the self-treatment of ‘Writer’s Block’ is vast and diversified. You might enjoy reading these articles, they are a fun and fast read. Please, do pay attention to the notes on them. My critical appraisal on the research about ‘Writter’s Block’ may be found at the end of this post.

1974 – the classical CASE REPORT by Dennis Upper:

  • Upper, Dennis (Fall 1974), “The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block””, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 7 (3): 497, doi:10.1901/jaba.1974.7-497a PDF Here

1983 – a REPLICATION study is performed by Molloy:

  • Molloy, G. N. (1983). The unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block”: A replication. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 57(2), 566-566. PDF Here

1984 – a new REPLICATION, however it partially failed, by Hermann:

  • Hermann, B. P. (1984). Unsuccessful self-treatment of a case of “writer’s block”: a partial failure to replicate. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 58(2), 350-350. PDF Here

1984 – a first REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE on the topic. Still, it was a narrative literature review, we have to wait until 2014 for the first systematic review and meta-analysis

  • Olson, K. R. (1984). Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of “Writer’s Block”: A Review of the Literature. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 59(1), 158–158. doi:10.2466/pms.1984.59.1.158 PDF Here

1985 – a CLINICAL TRIAL by Skinner:

  • Skinner, N. F., Perlini, A. H., Fric, L., Werstine, E. P., & Calla, J. (1985). The Unsuccessful Group-Treatment of “Writer’s Block”. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 61(1), 298-298. PDF Here

1996 – a COHORT study by Skinner:

  • Skinner, N. F., & Perlini, A. H. (1996). The unsuccessful group treatment of “writer’s block”: a ten-year follow-up. Perceptual and motor skills, 82(1), 138-138. PDF Here

2007 – a MULTICENTER REPLICATION study, an attempt to address statistical power issues by Didden:

  • Didden, R., Sigafoos, J., O’Reilly, M. F., Lancioni, G. E., & Sturmey, P. (2007). A multisite cross‐cultural replication of upper’s (1974) unsuccessful self‐treatment of writer’s block. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 40(4), 773-773. PDF Here

2014 – an evidence synthesis in a META-ANALYSIS by McLean:

  • McLean, D. C., & Thomas, B. R. (2014). Unsuccessful treatments of “Writer’s Block”: a meta-analysis. Psychological reports, 115(1), 276-278. PDF Here

Captura de ecrã 2018-10-05, às 16.11.03

McLean, D. C., & Thomas, B. R. (2014). Unsuccessful treatments of “Writer’s Block”: a meta-analysis. Psychological reports, 115(1), 276-278

 

After systematic and iterative readings on the ‘Writer’s Block’ scientific literature my critical appraisal is

 

 


If you have updates on this topic, please let me know

Acknowlegements: to Professor Pedro Lopes dos Santos and Professor Isabel Menezes for sharing with me several ideas on “Writer’s Block” and useful literature about it. I would like to say to them tha

 

 

 

Zombies in Evidence Based Research

10 Fri Nov 2017

Posted by Pedro M Teixeira in Must read, Research, Sports

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PROSPERO, Systematic Review, Zombies

It is very rewarding when you see a former student publishing about Zombies. The Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York hosts the international prospective registry platform for Systematic Reviews – PROSPERO. It is currently filled with ‘Zombies’. Renato Andrade makes a very good case about it and how to ‘fight back’ here: Zombie reviews taking over the PROSPERO systematic review registry. It’s time to fight back!

Captura de ecrã 2017-11-11, às 11.15.35

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