Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewM
It is a simple question. How do you prove something exists that doesn't exist?
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Not sure I understand your question.
The way science works is by looking for evidence to reject the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis would be that there's no correlation between aluminum adjuvants and autism. If no statistically significant correlation is found in the data, we still can't conclusively say that it's because no correlation exists: there could be a correlation that wasn't detected because our statistical power was too low, confounding variables masked it, we had bad experimental design (ie. biases in the data), or even outright fraud (the Vaxxed documentary alleges that Merck modified the data to hide a correlation between MMR and autism, which would be fraud).
You can also find a correlation where one doesn't really exist, by accident or by fraud, if you have low statistical power or biased data.
Unfortunately, "science" doesn't work very well on politicized topics because results can be so easily skewed. Even in non-politicized areas, biases and incorrect results occur by accident. In politicized areas, those biases can occur intentionally. That's why science on vaccines and climate change, for example, both degenerated to the "mainstream" people (and governments) trying to force their belief while ostracizing anyone who disagrees with them. This is not how science is supposed to work, scientists are supposed to go in without bias and to operate in good faith. But yea, science has largely been corrupted and that's why it's so hard to know what to believe anymore. Too much $ on the line. In Physics, if you fake your study your rocket won't work and you'll be a failure. In health and medicine, if you fake it nobody will know for decades and you'll make billions.