How to DIY New Scientific Protocols

Scientific research today relies on one main protocol — experiments with control groups and random assignment. In medical contexts, these are usually called randomized controlled trials, or RCTs. The RCT is a powerful invention for detecting population-level differences across treatments or conditions. If there’s a treatment and you want to know if it’s more effective than control or placebo, if you want to get an answer that’s totally dead to rights, the RCT is hard to beat. But there are some ...