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American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 133, No. 11: 1073-1077
Copyright © 1991 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health

review-article

Does Epidemiology Need a New Philosophy?

A Case Study of Logical Inquiry in the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Epidemic

Stephen K. C. Ng

From the G. H. Sergievsky Center, Faculty of Medicine, and Division of Epidemiology School of Public Health, Columbia University: New York State Psychiatnc Institute; and Arnencan Health Foundation New York, NY

Reprint requests to Dr. Stephen K. C. Ng, American Health Foundation, 320 E. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10017

The proposals of Popperian epidemiologists are examined using acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) research as a case study. Hypothesis generation is shown to be mostly an inductive process in the case of AIDS. For hypothesis testing, researchers again preferred inductive verification over deductive falsification. Action-oriented disciplines, such as medicine and epidemiology, search for commonsense certainty and not logical uncertainty. Insistence on falsification is often counterproductive. Induction and deduction, however, are not mutually exclusive. Conventional scientific methods, using both induction and deduction, appear to perform well in elucidating this latest epidemic, and Popper's philosophy has little to offer epidemiologists and other medical researchers.

acquired immunodeficiency syndrome; epidemiologic methods; philosophy


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