An interesting example (amost) of Zeno's Paradox.
On Dec 13, 2010, at 10:30 AM, Frank Wimberly wrote:
Yes, assuming independence. I suspect there would likely be
synergies, interferences or redundancies in the effects which would
change the calculation.
Frank
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
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: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
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: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
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 <[email protected]>
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outdated advice.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 Dec 12, 2010, at 5:58 AM, [email protected] wrote:
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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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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