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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 30, 2026

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

Exploring the Role of Deontic Reasoning and World Knowledge in Wason´s Selection Task

Published on: July 22, 2025

Evidence, values, and decision making.

Michael D Rawlins¹

¹Royal Society of Medicine.

International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care

|April 30, 2014

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Health technology assessment (HTA) requires both scientific and social value judgments. While HTA bodies can make scientific judgments, social values must be informed by the public.

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Area of Science:

Health technology assessment (HTA)
Evidence-based medicine
Clinical decision-making

Background:

Intervention effectiveness can be supported by experimental or observational studies.
Rigorous evaluation of clinical and cost-effectiveness is crucial for HTA.
Evidence review alone is insufficient for HTA; expert judgment is necessary.

Purpose of the Study:

To discuss the nature of judgments required in health technology assessment.
To differentiate between scientific and social value judgments in HTA.
To explore the role of public input in HTA decision-making.

Main Methods:

The discussion is based on the author's experience as chairman of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
Analysis of the types of judgments involved in health technology assessment.

Main Results:

Health technology assessment (HTA) involves two types of judgments: scientific and social value.
Scientific judgments concern the interpretation of scientific evidence.
Social value judgments encompass societal ethical principles, preferences, culture, and aspirations.

Conclusions:

Capturing scientific and social value judgments is a key challenge for HTA agencies.
HTA bodies possess the expertise for scientific judgments but lack legitimacy for imposing social values.
Social values in HTA must ultimately be derived from and informed by the general public.