Yes, assuming independence. I suspect there would likely be synergies, interferences or redundancies in the effects which would change the calculation.
Frank
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 11:24 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The "decline effect"
... and (building on Frank's case) if you to something else to reduce it by another 20% your overall risk goes to 0.64% and so on. It can never go to 0% how ever hard you try, but as Frank says your chance of dying of something else first might be much greater (e.g. in a car wreck).
Robert C
On 12/12/10 9:02 PM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
Doesn’t saying that you will reduce your risk of getting cancer of the X by 20% by doing thus-and-so mean that you reduce the risk, for example, from 1% to 0.8% ?
And to answer Pamela’s question, I think the only way to be sure you won’t get cancer is to die of something else first.
Frank
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 8:34 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The "decline effect"
Funny how everybody criticizes the question but nobody answers it?
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES
Sent: Sunday, December 12, 2010 7:57 PM
To: friam
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The "decline effect"
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It's certainly the case that many medical practitioners follow outdated advice.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
<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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