So what does this experiment have to do with health care?
Quite a lot, actually. Because the same strategy that showed that the spoon doesn't help can be used to test almost all medical interventions, by simply swapping the champagne bottle for "Medical Condition X" and the spoon for "Intervention Y." Of course, it's much harder to judge health issues than the fizziness and taste of champagne, but the principle is the same:
- There are at least two groups that can be compared to each other
- Participants' personal biases are minimized as much as possible
These kinds of tests or experiments have become normal in health care in the last 60 years. They are called randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The core idea is to, for example, test the benefits of a new medicine by dividing a group of volunteers into at least two groups by chance (“randomized”). One of the groups will use the new drug, and the other will use an older one or a placebo (dummy drug). Then the treatment outcomes and experiences of the participants are compared.
Just how these studies need to be done to deliver reliable results depends on the illness and the treatment. Sometimes, monitoring 50 or 100 people for a few weeks is enough. Other times, big studies involving several tens of thousands of men and women over many years may be necessary. What's more, single studies are often not conclusive enough to answer a research question on their own. That is why it is usually necessary to consider the results of all the relevant studies.