There is no such thing as an impartial sponsor; some are more obviously biased than others, but the belief in a fictitious impartiality is part of the problem. It shouldn't take a meta-study for people to see am obvious conflict of interest.

I'm biased. You are biased. Everyone is biased.

[–] Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

Hi, please, don't. These baseless "corrections" that are really just semantics aren't helping anyone, and just contribute to anti-intellectualism.

We know what an impartial sponsor is in the context of this study - it's a sponsor that doesn't have a profit motive.

Obviously humans are biased. Scientists know that. Scientists train on that concept from day one. Observational studies are hard to control for bias, but that doesn't mean the field of science is silly for trying anyway.

The placebo-controlled double-blind study is the gold standard of scientific experiment for a reason.

An impartial sponsor is not a sponsor that is inhuman and has no preconceptions. We all know that's impossible.

An impartial sponsor is one that does not have clear signs of partiality - like a literal profit motive. That's all.

Edit - and for the record, in science, everything requires study. If you want to claim that conflicts of interest are impacting scientific results, you study it.

That's what it means to be impartial. To not trust assumptions based on your preconceptions. Assume as little as possible, consider as many possible explanations as you can, and verify everything.

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