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“No Evidence to Suggest…”
The Impact of a Greatly Misunderstood and Misleading Phrase
“No evidence to suggest,” or “No evidence for,” is a phrase that you’ll see with irritating frequency when you lose yourself in the medical literature. To a layman, it can seem like the end of the road. Surely, if there’s ‘no evidence to suggest’, then it’s not there, right?
That enthusiasm is a positive thing but what does it really mean? And, particularly in medicine, what difference should it make?
What Does “No Evidence to Suggest” Actually Mean?
Fundamentally, ‘no evidence to suggest’ is equivalent to ‘there is simply no evidence available to support that claim based on the data currently before us and/or the research that we have conducted.’ But this expression is also enmeshed with insinuations that need to be unpicked.
- Insufficient investigation: Sometimes, ‘no evidence to suggest‘ just means that no one has done enough research. It doesn’t mean that the claim is false. It can mean none of the work has been done.
For example, there might be no evidence to suggest that a particular herb cures headaches. If no one has performed a study to prove this true, does it make it wrong?
