> anyone who has looked into the evidence around nootropics can tell you that pretty much nobody wants to study that
There's a class of areas where lots of non-experts are interested, but doing studies large enough to detect modest effect sizes with high confidence is too expensive. Nutrition can do either large survey studies, or small controlled experiments. Exercise researchers often have to work with a small number of untrained participants. I would love a citizen science platform for large studies of low-risk interventions operated like a multi-armed bandit setup. "Oh, you're interested improving working memory? Follow regimen X for 90 days and do this working memory test every week." I feel like the hardest parts are getting participants to adhere to their assigned intervention, and preventing participants with a pre-existing agenda from joining.
> I feel like the hardest parts are getting participants to adhere to their assigned intervention, and preventing participants with a pre-existing agenda from joining.
This combined with perverse incentives are why it's not possible. Non-experts with the resources to solve these problems are generally trying to sell you something, and aren't particularly interested in the truth.
Perhaps so. Saying it's "not possible" seems like an overly strong conclusion.
For specific interventions, I think it might be possible to have open, blinded participation. E.g. for supplements which may affect memory:
- Participants sign up to buy a supplement which they know will be one of k generally safe supplements or a placebo
- The specific supplement or placebo they receive it thompson sampled (or similar) from our bandit given data so far, and sent to them unlabeled
- They're only able to receive their next bottle if they complete weekly tests or measurements
The value prop is that you're probably buying a pretty good intervention, even if you don't know which one it is (and perhaps you're getting a discount subsidized by the minority of people who are paying for a placebo at any given time).
For a number of questions related to exercise, people may fall into camps about their prior beliefs, and may self-sabotage if they're in treatment group that goes against their preferences but there isn't a clear thing to sell. E.g. which of a family of training schedules helps people reduce their 10k running time the most?
There's a class of areas where lots of non-experts are interested, but doing studies large enough to detect modest effect sizes with high confidence is too expensive. Nutrition can do either large survey studies, or small controlled experiments. Exercise researchers often have to work with a small number of untrained participants. I would love a citizen science platform for large studies of low-risk interventions operated like a multi-armed bandit setup. "Oh, you're interested improving working memory? Follow regimen X for 90 days and do this working memory test every week." I feel like the hardest parts are getting participants to adhere to their assigned intervention, and preventing participants with a pre-existing agenda from joining.