Mechanism and evidence
The chain of events claimed for this treatment, where it stops being established biology, and what the published record can and cannot establish.
The mechanism proposed for polynucleotide treatment is coherent. Coherence is not demonstration. This chapter separates the two, describes the evidence base by its shape rather than by invented figures, and sets out at length what is not known.
- 2.1The claimed mechanism, step by step
The story told about how this treatment works is coherent. Coherence is not the same as demonstration, and the two are worth separating link by link.
- 2.2The shape of the evidence
You can learn most of what you need to know about a body of research without reading a single result, by looking at what kind of studies it contains.
- 2.3What is not known
This is the central article of the document. Everything else in it is arranged around the question of which claims have been established and which have not.
- 2.4Reading a study a clinic quotes at you
You will sometimes be handed a paper, a summary, or a slide with a citation on it. Here is what to look at, in what order, and what each finding means.
- 2.5Why we publish no numbers
The figures quoted in this category are its least reliable output. This article explains the policy that follows from that, because a reader is entitled to know why a reference is withholding something.
- 2.6Laboratory findings and people
A great deal of what is said about this treatment originates in a dish. That is a legitimate place for it to originate and a poor place for it to stop.
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