Is False Equivalency is the New Precision?

An APA dispatch

Precise treatments for imprecisely defined illness are false precision. Welcome to the story of the talk that ended up presenting data I was a PI on!

“You have to be worried that I am misrepresenting this information for cash, which is why we have disclosures at the end of every talk”

—Dan Karlin, CMO Mind Medicine

We tend not to disclose our beliefs as conflicts. We are, arguably, more likely to misrepresent reality based on our ideas on which we built our careers.

Precision is a fundamental concept for measurement. The ability to measure itself is what creates both our science and its biases.

Lithium was approved in 1970 for the treatment of Bipolar Mania, preceding the Young Mania Rating Scale. This scale was published in 1978. We still use this scale today.

As a brief aside…the initial lithiated Soda had between 50-150mg of lithium! This, dear readers, is a lot of lithium. Let’s look at something simple and objective to measure!

Weight is able to be measured multiple times a day: