III. The architecture of clinical research

Because the scientific fundamentals of clinical research are omitted in most statistical discussions of the “design of experiments,” 5 a new scientific architecture must be developed as a methodologic discipline for planning clinical investigations. These investigations can be constructed in several different ways, according to the events, problems, and challenges contained in the clinical experiments of nature and of man. In the previous paper of this series, 5 I outlined those diverse investigative structures, which include the following: surveys of nature's activities in preserving health, or in creating and evolving human disease; surveys and experimental trials of man's therapeutic attempts to intervene in the course of nature; explanatory experiments that probe a maneuver of nature or delineate a maneuver of man; and exploratory efforts to assess and improve the methodology used in the foregoing research activities.