From the epitome of crunching numbers, statistical science has traveled a long distance. It is time that it is realized as a management science. This is especially true for biostatistics. I seek to define biostatistics as the science of managing medical uncertanities.
Medical uncertainty is easy to handle when divided into aleatory and epistemic types. These terms may sound new to medicine but are commonly used in seismic science and economics. Aleatory uncertainty in medicine arises from endogenous factors such as inherent biological variation, environmental factors, socio-cultural and psychological factors, random variation due to observers, instruments and laboratories, etc. Epistemic uncertainty arises from lack of knowledge, conceptual errors, non-availability of tools, and biases of various types. These sources are exogenous in nature.
Scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further progress of science, usually by reporting novel research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past. Most journals are highly specialized, although some of the oldest journals publish articles and scientific papers across a wide range of scientific fields. Scientific journals contain articles that are peer reviewed, to ensure that articles meet the journal's standards of quality, and scientific validity. The publication of the results of research is an essential part of the scientific method. If they are describing experiments or calculations, they must supply enough details that an independent researcher could repeat the experiment or calculation to verify the results. Each such journal article becomes part of the permanent scientific record.
Last date updated on April, 2024