ABSTRACT
Example 1: One example is cancer, where massive investments have been made for the development of anti-cancer nanomedicine, which has been rationalized on the basis of the enhanced permeability and retention effect seen in experimental animal models [6]. The majority of these developments, however, have led to disappointing therapeutic efficacy and incremental clinical success [6, 16]. In spite of these setbacks, there is an increasing number of forced efforts to combat cancer with a variety of alternative nanomaterials of different functionalities, but the same principles and perceptions still operate. Here, anti-cancer nanomedicine research and development has become the victim of narrative fallacy and epistemic arrogance [17, 18].1 This is defined as vulnerability to over-interpretation and over-estimation of what we know, leading to underestimation of uncertainty. Cancer is a 1“Narrative fallacy and epistemic arrogance” is a term introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (University of Massachusetts at Amherst) in his book “The Black Swan”, Second Edition, 2010, Penguin Books, London, England.
