9 Comments

Right.... They're not synonymous and they're not mutually exclusive either. That's trivial.

So then what makes Robin think that Carpenter was not actually impressed with the FDA's skill at fulfilling its mandate? Is this post really saying anything at all, other than "I believe that implementing stricter regulations is evidence of a less-scientific process"? Or possibly "I can see into a man's head"?

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I'm saying that I intuit (1) we're observer agents, (2) you're talking about future phenomena (3) you're not making a conditional prediction, and (4) the reason you're prediction wasn't conditional wasn't for purposes of efficient communication.

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You saying I'm inaccurate, or that its immoral to be accurate?

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The defeatist tone at the end of your post is essentially complicity.

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Great post, Robin. I was bothered by Tyler's on the book. When the chief thing one demonstrates is his evil, the reviewer ought to let it be known, when aware of it, and Tyler was aware. Yes, we need to compromise and bargain with evil, but Tyler has been intemperate in his temperance, me thinks. I really appreciate this post.

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Needs correction at "too much or discretion".

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Proper Dave, he's not saying being scientifically prestigious and regulating effectively are mutually exclusive, but surely you would agree that those two things are not synonymous either? The point is that being a good regulatory agency relies on more than mere scientific knowledge.

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It seems very reasonable to me for someone to write a mostly-objective book--refraining as much as possible from injecting opinion--without then giving up their right to ever take opinions on the issue. Further, if this is in fact one of the best books on the subject, that probably suggest that the author's opinions should be strongly considered.

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This post is kind of waffling I don't really get what you are trying to say.

You say that the FDA is known for being scientific rather than you know regulating effectively... I don't see how this is mutually exclusive. To regulate effectively you have to be scientific in any case...And the FDA to regulate effectively have to employ allot of scientist and scientific methods because of the nature of the industry.So its "scientific" reputation maybe comes from the way it has to operate in order to regulate effectively.

And you were saying?

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