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Wilhelm et. al. 2016 is a meta-analysis of 23 placebo controlled beta-blocker studies. The attempt of the study was to indicate what fraction of the beta-blocker's effect was due to the placebo effect.

In a discussion with another person, a few issues have come up. First, he feels uncomfortable with the variability of the study designs for the 23 studies used. I see that as being a necessary component of the analysis, as it is seeing if different methodologies yield different results.

He claims the studies are not randomized, but they do seem to be randomly selected, just controlled for certain requirements in order to perform the moderator analysis.

The conclusion also seems reasonable: if study quality improvement yields stronger results, the logical conclusion is that the effect is real and not due to some kind of statistical noise.

Am I accidentally ignoring the flaws, or are they simply not there?

Daniel Goldman
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  • Just want to check, does anyone think if this would be better asked on research or biology stackexchange? – Daniel Goldman Nov 26 '17 at 11:45
  • In my opinion, it’s fine, but due to low activity on the site, you might not get an answer. – Narusan Nov 26 '17 at 12:33
  • Nice question, although you'll need indeed patience for an answer. If you want to ask about it elsewhere then make sure to vary the focus sufficiently to avoid a frowned upon cross-post. – LаngLаngС Nov 26 '17 at 15:22
  • Exactly why I asked this question: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/303690/multiple-se-posting-progress?noredirect=1#comment987367_303690 – Daniel Goldman Nov 26 '17 at 15:39
  • Sadly it was originally worded in such a way as to be a duplicate and of course once downvoting starts, it seems to be a one way street. – Daniel Goldman Nov 26 '17 at 15:39
  • I added a more generic question in the academic SE. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/99496/are-meta-analyses-a-scientifically-robust-form-of-investigation – Daniel Goldman Nov 27 '17 at 12:13

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