The assumption is that either the current version of the scientific method is the best way or the only way to gain knowledge, and t'ain't necessarily so.

The use of sham surgery, double blind studies, etc evolved from a world where the rat was expendable. On one level we are rats in this system.

Given a population with a degenerative disease and you test a new treatment by intentionally condemning half of them, aren't the ethics questionable? If you start with a thousand aren't you precluding 500 from any chance of a life? The rat gets only one chance.

What if you gave all 1000 the chance? Don't you already have some idea of what you think will happen? If not, then you are worse than a street corner faith healer. If so, then you should be able to project an improvement of "x" percent. Why not use that as the benchmark?

And "placebo"? Many researchers almost say it with a sneer. Yet, like"idiopathic", it is the medical equivalent of "here there be dragons" on an ancient chart of a flat earth.

If you want this rat you are going to have to treat him like a man. Lay out the evidence, show me the projections, assure me that I am not going to be "sacrificed" for some procedural requirement.

The scientific method is great in the abstract but it is like religion. Depends on how you apply it.