The Bad Quarto Quotes

“Well, there is a bothersome ethical problem with a proper trial involving a control group, and blind testing. If something looks effective – say it seems to be slowing the growth of tumours – then everyone wants to abandon the trial and give the thing to the control group as well. It seems wicked to withhold it just because of a scientific quibble.’ ‘So the trial is suspended incomplete?’ ‘And then nobody knows exactly where we are. A lot of medical procedure is like that too. Never properly verified. But people love certainty – so dramatic, so newsworthy. The qualified truth, full of ifs and buts and as far as we know so far, is so relatively boring.”
― Jill Paton Walsh, The Bad Quarto