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IJE Advance Access originally published online on July 16, 2009
International Journal of Epidemiology 2009 38(4):903-907; doi:10.1093/ije/dyp234
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Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2009; all rights reserved.

Facts, opinions and affaires du couer*,{dagger}

Michael Marmot

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Someone has suggested that any scientist should begin a scientific paper with the phrase: "Ladies and gentlemen, these are the opinions on which I base my facts ..."

That scientists should have affairs of the heart with scientific theories marks them as being human, and to seek to defend one's lover against the attacks of others and to document her or his virtues is surely a worthy enterprise. This might be taken as implying that science is intuitive and irrational. In this paper, taking the epidemiology of coronary heart disease as my focus, I should like to present the case, made by some philosophers of science, that science does have a heavy dose of the intuitive and irrational and that these are fundamental to the way science proceeds. Even accepting this irrationality, however, there are rational methodological guidelines, which, if followed by epidemiologists, might improve the way epidemiologic research is . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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