This linked paper discusses a great global medical error which persisted long after it should have been recognized. The paper shows how excessive confidence in consensus criteria (which are often guessed by experts) and the RCT applied to the heterogenous mix of diseases within the consensus defined “syndrome”.
The paper explains how anchor bias and failure to recognize the potential of amplification of heterogeneity effects (HTE) produced a global catastrophe born of overconfidence in a RCT… Much of this was predictable from the lessons I taught here What is a fake measurement tool and how are they used in RCT
This is a call to the young to learn from the mistakes of the past.
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