Ng S K
G. H. Sergievsky Center, Faculty of Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY.
Am J Epidemiol. 1991 Jun 1;133(11):1073-7. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a115820.
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 common sense 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.
以获得性免疫缺陷综合征（艾滋病）研究为例，对波普尔派流行病学家的提议进行了审视。结果表明，在艾滋病研究中，假设生成大多是一个归纳过程。在假设检验方面，研究人员再次倾向于归纳验证而非演绎证伪。像医学和流行病学这样以行动为导向的学科，追求的是常识性的确定性而非逻辑上的不确定性。坚持证伪往往会适得其反。然而，归纳和演绎并非相互排斥。运用归纳和演绎的传统科学方法，在阐明这一最新流行病方面似乎表现良好，而波普尔的哲学对流行病学家和其他医学研究人员几乎没有什么帮助。
