Sunday Lecture: Evidence - Medicine Meets the Philosophy of Science

Professor John Worrall shines a light on the murkier aspects of 'evidenced based medicine'.

There is a (relatively) new movement that has had, and continues to have, a big impact within medicine – called ‘Evidence Based Medicine’ (EBM). At first sight it seems amazing that such a movement was deemed necessary or, having been launched, could have met with any objection: what else should medicine (like any other rational pursuit) be based on apart from the evidence?! In this talk John Worrall explains (1) why its proponents deemed EBM necessary, (2) why, despite having its heart palpably in the right place, EBM has got itself into a bit of a mess concerning the details of the logic of evidence and (3) how some simple insights from the philosophy of science can help to clear up the mess.

John Worrall is Professor of Philosophy of Science in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, where he has spent his whole career (having been first appointed as a lecturer there in 1971). He studied under Karl Popper and then wrote his PhD under the supervision of Imre Lakatos. He was Editor of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science from 1974-83 and President of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science from 2009-11.

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