Scientists Edge Closer To Lab Test For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

It's worth noting that their false discovery rate was not study-wide, but rather group-wide. As they state at the very end of the paper, "FDR control was performed separately by group (e.g., severity level) to allow for group differences in the proportions of truly null hypotheses". So, if you try to look at all significant P-values, after adjustment, you'll find that for that purpose, the P-value significance is going to be inflated.

In a world run by libertarian capitalists, what good comes from such studies? I know such things can be used to determine policy. But let's say that in turns out cytokines do, in fact, cause CFS, and that -- for the sake of argument -- banning them would be a good thing.

How would this newfound knowledge go from being something known to having action taken upon it? Libertarian capitalism has come to dominate every discussion of this kind. If an action requires regulatory or legislative action, the modern capitalist opposes it outright, even if the outcome would be demonstrably good.

Please forgive if this is off-topic, but it is frustrating seeing such well-done science that seemingly has no one of similar professionalism in the political realm to apply that knowledge in a way that makes society better off.

For instance, suppose that the cure for this problem turns out to be an expensive, complex drug. Somebody stands to make a lot of money by figuring out what that drug is and selling it. They can't make that money now, but eventually they'll be able to, so they support the research in order to get there.

Now, do I support profit being the driver behind this kind of research? Not at all. Do I think it's the best system for doing this? Hardly. But can it work? It can and sometimes does.