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Three Arguments for Absolute Outcome Measures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Jan Sprenger  and
Jacob Stegenga
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Abstract

Data from medical research are typically summarized with various types of outcome measures. We present three arguments in favor of absolute over relative outcome measures. The first argument is from cognitive bias: relative measures promote the reference class fallacy and the overestimation of treatment effectiveness. The second argument is decision-theoretic: absolute measures are superior to relative measures for making a decision between interventions. The third argument is causal: interpreted as measures of causal strength, absolute measures satisfy a set of desirable properties, but relative measures do not. Absolute outcome measures outperform relative measures on all counts.

Type
Evidence and Inference
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 84 , Issue 5 , December 2017 , pp. 840 - 852
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

The authors wish to thank Aaron Kenna, Clark Glymour, Felipe Romero, and the audience at PSA 2016 for helpful feedback and discussion. Research on this topic was financially supported by European Research Council Starting Investigator grant 640638 (Sprenger). The authors contributed equally to this article.

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