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Science is cumulative, but scientists don’t accumulate evidence scientifically

‘Academic researchers have been talking about something called “cumulative meta-analysis” for 25 years: essentially, you run a rolling meta-analysis on a given intervention, and each time a trial is completed, you plug the figures in to get your updated pooled result, to get a feel for where the results are headed, and most usefully, have a good chance of spotting a statistically significant answer as soon as it becomes apparent, without risking lives on further unnecessary research.’

Goldacre B. Bad Science: How pools of blood trials could save lives. The Guardian, 10 May 2008, p16.