Does epidemiology need a new philosophy? A case study of logical inquiry in the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome epidemic.
The proposals of Popperian epidemiologists are examined using acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) research as a case study. Hypothesis generation is shown to be mostly an inductive process in the case of AIDS. For hypothesis testing, researchers again preferred inductive verification over deductive falsification. Action-oriented disciplines, such as medicine and epidemiology, search for common sense certainty and not logical uncertainty. Insistence on falsification is often counterproductive. Induction and deduction, however, are not mutually exclusive. Conventional scientific methods, using both induction and deduction, appear to perform well in elucidating this latest epidemic, and Popper's philosophy has little to offer epidemiologists and other medical researchers.
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G. H. Sergievsky Center, Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY.
D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000209:etiology; D004813:Epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D010684:Philosophy; D011338:Probability Theory