Who was excluded from these trials, and who that leaves out

The paper we read last month had a population nothing like most of this circle, which does not make it useless and does limit what it tells us.

To the opening post rather than to the thread: Pam, this is my version of it.

Something I got wrong early was reading a single paper as an answer. It is one piece of evidence and it usually raises three questions.

I would say do read the supplementary material occasionally. Twice now the thing I wanted to know was only in there.

What helped was somebody explaining confidence intervals to me properly, once, in plain terms, and I have read differently ever since.

Reading this properly rather than skimming, which is all I have to offer today.

I found the funding declarations worth reading, not as an accusation, but because they tell you what question somebody was paying to have answered.

My honest position is that the evidence base for the main compounds is genuinely substantial and the evidence for a great deal else is not.

What surprised me was how readable most of these are once you stop being intimidated by the first page.

Somebody here asked what would change our minds, at the start of a session, and it improved the discussion enormously.

I found the discussion sections the least reliable part of most papers and the results tables the most.