Variability Versus Diversity in Variety

Abstract

Making sense of the enormous variety of patient phenomena creates the epistemic conundrum. Is each and every patient taken as a unique entity, or is there an economical set of principles and facts from which each and every patient can be reconstructed? Empiric medicine favors the former, risking Solipsism of the Present Moment. Rationalist/allopathic medicine favors the latter but makes application of knowledge to the individual patient problematic. The conundrum cannot be resolved by simply taking the “average” of all patients or some other measure of central tendency. While it is possible to find the average weight of animals in Dundas, Ontario, it would have little meaning, except perhaps in exceptional circumstance. A central question in statistics is whether the mean (average) reflects the true nature of the phenomenon or does its range (variance)? Assuming the former is greatly enabling in medical decision-making and research but may be misleading.