Eli5 – the efficacy of the scientific method

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Why do scientific experiments (mainly in neuroscience and psychology) need to be done on more than 1 person? I was under the impression that the most important part of determining the study’s accuracy was to ensure that the outcome had a less than 5% chance of occurring without the theorised variable.

Couldn’t a situation emerge where the outcome was almost certainly attributed to the variable in question even with one person. For example, something extremely random, like (stupid example) a blood clot forming in someone’s left pinky finger after being reminded of childhood trauma (and it was predicted beforehand).

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>Why do scientific experiments (mainly in neuroscience and psychology) need to be done on more than 1 person? I was under the impression that the most important part of determining the study’s accuracy was to ensure that the outcome had a less than 5% chance of occurring without the theorised variable.

>Couldn’t a situation emerge where the outcome **was almost certainly attributed** to the variable in question even with one person. For example, something extremely random, like (stupid example) a blood clot forming in someone’s left pinky finger after being reminded of childhood trauma (and it was predicted beforehand).

How would you quantify this “almost certainty”? When you test a sample of 1 you will only ever have two possible results for anything: 100% and 0%.

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