Setting limits to infinite error

doi:10.1136/bmj.a1823

Published 25 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1823
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1823

Editor's Choice

Setting limits to infinite error

Tony Delamothe, deputy editor, BMJ

tdelamothe@bmj.com

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

If the journal were to print an epigram over each of its sectionsthen for Letters I’d plump for Bertolt Brecht’sdescription of the purpose of science. "The aim of science isnot to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limitto infinite error," said the protagonist in his Life of Galileo.Setting a limit to infinite error just about sums up what Lettersare for.

All BMJ letters begin their lives as (online) rapid responsesto articles, and in a generous week we select about 10% of theseto publish as letters in the print journal. Our main criterionfor selection is whether a response identifies an error, weakness,or incompleteness in the original article that readers wouldbenefit from knowing about.

This week’s Letters pages provide a good example of ouraspirations. Colombians Ospina and Salcedo flag up a problemof using ibuprofen . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?