BMJ  2003;326:1453-1455 (28 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.326.7404.1453

Education and debate

Effect of interpretive bias on research evidence

¹ Harvard Medical School, Osher Institute, 401 Park Drive, Boston, MA 02215, USA ted_kaptchuk@hms.harvard.edu

Doctors are being encouraged to improve their critical appraisal skills to make better use of medical research. But when using these skills, it is important to remember that interpretation of data is inevitably subjective and can itself result in bias.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Facts do not accumulate on the blank slates of researchers' minds and data simply do not speak for themselves.¹ Good science inevitably embodies a tension between the empiricism of concrete data and the rationalism of deeply held convictions. Unbiased interpretation of data is as important as performing rigorous experiments. This evaluative process is never totally objective or completely independent of scientists' convictions or theoretical apparatus. This article elaborates on an insight of Vandenbroucke, who noted that "facts and theories remain inextricably linked... At the cutting edge of scientific progress, where new ideas develop, we will never escape subjectivity."² Interpretation can produce sound judgments or systematic error. Only hindsight will enable us to tell which has occurred. Nevertheless, awareness of the systematic errors that can occur in evaluative processes may facilitate the self regulating forces of science and help produce reliable knowledge sooner rather than later.

Interpretative processes and biases in medical science

Science demands a critical attitude, . . . [Full text of this article]

Quality assessment and confirmation bias

Expectation and rescue and auxiliary hypothesis biases

Plausibility and mechanism bias

Waiting for more evidence and "time will tell" bias

Hypothesis and orientation bias

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