Commentary: Grading the credibility of molecular evidence for complex diseases

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Abstract
Dissecting the aetiology of complex diseases has been a great challenge for biomedical research, including epidemiology. Several thinkers,1–4 including Buchanan et al.5 recently, have focused on the unquestionable difficulties of this ambitious enterprise and the great obstacles encountered in the way. Some of them have ended up with a futility outlook. Over more than a decade, the debate has ranged wild on whether epidemiology has reached its limits,6 is either dead or in a vegetative state, should call it a day, and whether ‘it is time for scientists to re-think the quest’ and realize that ‘base metal cannot be turned to gold’.5