Re: The "decline effect"
Posted by
Eric Charles on
Dec 13, 2010; 2:57am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/The-decline-effect-tp5827610p5829522.html
Pamela,
What an odd question...
Don't you know
that your
initial chances of getting THAT type of cancer are less than 20% from the
start?!? If you can find just one thing to lower your changes by twenty
percent, that puts you into the negative probability range, and you can worry
about other things.
Eric
On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 07:38 AM,
Pamela McCorduck <[hidden email]> wrote:
The NYer can be obtuse about scientific topics,
but this article intrigued me. Is the decline effect real?
It's certainly the case that many medical practitioners follow outdated
advice. And the use of statistics in medicine (to be sure, a special subset of
science) can be awkward. I keep asking people: if I've lowered my chances by
twenty percent of contracting a certain cancer by doing thus-and-so, and I find
four other thus-and-so's to also do, does that mean I'll never get that cancer?
No one can answer.
On 12 Dec 2010
at 0:46, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
At least
until recently, when the NY-er writes about science, they try very
hard not to write anything stupid.
What??? Have you forgotten the whole disgraceful
Paul Brodeur episode?
Refresh your memory by reading
<<a
href="http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN10/wn121010.html"
onclick="window.open('http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN10/wn121010.html');return false;">http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN10/wn121010.html>.
Worse than stupid, verging on criminal, given the
amount of money it's caused to be thrown away and
the amount of anxiety it's generated or caused to
be misplaced.
I haven't yet read the "decline effect" article, and
am not commenting on it, just on your quoted sentence
above.
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
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