Quote:
Originally Posted by Frownland
I'm in the bathroom at a party rn. I'll hook Chula up with some meta analysis and an explanation of why meta analysis is good later unless ped does it first.
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Meta-analyses are the greatest tool we have to determine scientific fact and how a sea of findings converge to reveal a greater picture.
A case study is a snapshot of a person. A study is a snapshot of a specific population. A meta-analysis is the closest thing science has to a complete picture of a phenomenon.
The meta-analytic process involves massive teams of researchers pooling ALL of the research (some parameters specified depending on what the meta-analysis is designed to study) on a topic--and I mean scouring thousands--hundreds of thousands--of studies (both published and unpublished), then pooling and analyzing the data from those studies to examine the broad trends that are occurring in a field of research.
Meta-analyses are how we can say something with 99.9% certainty. They're how 95+% of scientists can agree upon issues like climate change and the value of vaccines. They're as concrete as science currently gets, and they're the future of scientific agreement in any given field.
**** yeah science!