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Nonsense. Catching cancer prior to stage 3 is HUGELY important. With prostate cancer it can be cut out or irradiated with a high cure rate at stage 2. Once it s

Nonsense. Catching cancer prior to stage 3 is HUGELY important. With prostate cancer it can be cut out or irradiated with a high cure rate at stage 2. Once it spreads though you are in a very different course.

foldr 6y ago
I think you're talking about cancer screening rather than the hypothetical in my post. I was not suggesting that no-one should ever get screened for any illness. But it's a balance. Too much screening and testing can be just as harmful as too little - or perhaps even more so. Prostate cancer is actually a classic example of this (see e.g. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/the-pros-and-cons-of-psa-screening#:~:text=Concerns%20about%20PSA%20screening&text=One%20study%20estimated%20overdetection%20to,such%20as%20incontinence%20and%20impotence. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/the-pros-and-cons-...)
- abalone 6y ago
  Your hypothetical includes every illness and thus, cancer. It is extremely helpful to detect cancer early. The prostate cancer field is rapidly evolving, and the “controversy” over PSA testing in the US over the last decade is looking like a big mistake. See for example https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2680144 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/268...
  - foldr 6y ago
    >Your hypothetical includes every illness and thus, cancer. I think there's a quantifier scope error here. I was saying "you don't want to see everything on the list", i.e. "it's not the case that for all x, you want to see x". You seem to be reading this as "For all x, you don't want to see x". Whatever the right answer is for specific cases (such as prostate cancer), I'm certainly not saying that all testing or screening is pointless. The paper you link to has a grand total of two citations listed on Google Scholar.
    - abalone 6y ago
      It’s a comment by the chair of the #4 ranked prostate cancer department in the country. Here’s another: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2594540 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/25... You changed your statement. What you said was “Do you really want to read through that list? You're better off not worrying about it and enjoying your life.” This unambiguously refers to the list in its entirety.
      - foldr 6y ago
        No, you're still making the quantifier scope error. I'm saying you'd be better off not reading the full list. It doesn't follow from that that you'd be better of without knowing about any of the items of the list. Your mistake is anbalagous to inferring (B) from (A): (A) John doesn't want to eat the whole pie. (B) John doesn't want to eat any of the pie. I'm saying that you're better off not eating the whole pie / reading through the whole list. It doesn't follow from that that you're better off without any pie / without knowing any of the test results on the list. That's why the list in my hypothetical scenario is comprehensive. If I was saying that you'd be better off not knowing anything, then my hypothetical scenario could just have been "you get some kind of test result giving you information about some aspect of your health", rather than an unrealistic scenario where you get completely comprehensive information about your future health.
        abalone 6y ago
        You are misusing academic language to mask a modification to your claim under interrogation. You specifically argued against “an awareness awakening by the sick individual that would bring a healthier lifestyle“ by stating it is “better off not worrying about it and enjoying your life.” You are now attempting to amend that claim by saying well of course you’re in favor of knowing about the bad things. So what does this mean, that you actually support looking at a hypothetical comprehensive list, just that it should be sorted by severity so you don’t have to sweat the small stuff? That would be a fundamental modification of your original claim which had no such qualification.

foldr 6y ago

I think you're talking about cancer screening rather than the hypothetical in my post. I was not suggesting that no-one should ever get screened for any illness. But it's a balance. Too much screening and testing can be just as harmful as too little - or perhaps even more so. Prostate cancer is actually a classic example of this (see e.g. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/the-pros-and-cons-of-psa-screening#:~:text=Concerns%20about%20PSA%20screening&text=One%20study%20estimated%20overdetection%20to,such%20as%20incontinence%20and%20impotence. https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/the-pros-and-cons-...)

abalone 6y ago
Your hypothetical includes every illness and thus, cancer. It is extremely helpful to detect cancer early. The prostate cancer field is rapidly evolving, and the “controversy” over PSA testing in the US over the last decade is looking like a big mistake. See for example https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2680144 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/268...
- foldr 6y ago
  >Your hypothetical includes every illness and thus, cancer. I think there's a quantifier scope error here. I was saying "you don't want to see everything on the list", i.e. "it's not the case that for all x, you want to see x". You seem to be reading this as "For all x, you don't want to see x". Whatever the right answer is for specific cases (such as prostate cancer), I'm certainly not saying that all testing or screening is pointless. The paper you link to has a grand total of two citations listed on Google Scholar.
  - abalone 6y ago
    It’s a comment by the chair of the #4 ranked prostate cancer department in the country. Here’s another: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2594540 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/25... You changed your statement. What you said was “Do you really want to read through that list? You're better off not worrying about it and enjoying your life.” This unambiguously refers to the list in its entirety.
    - foldr 6y ago
      No, you're still making the quantifier scope error. I'm saying you'd be better off not reading the full list. It doesn't follow from that that you'd be better of without knowing about any of the items of the list. Your mistake is anbalagous to inferring (B) from (A): (A) John doesn't want to eat the whole pie. (B) John doesn't want to eat any of the pie. I'm saying that you're better off not eating the whole pie / reading through the whole list. It doesn't follow from that that you're better off without any pie / without knowing any of the test results on the list. That's why the list in my hypothetical scenario is comprehensive. If I was saying that you'd be better off not knowing anything, then my hypothetical scenario could just have been "you get some kind of test result giving you information about some aspect of your health", rather than an unrealistic scenario where you get completely comprehensive information about your future health.
      - abalone 6y ago
        You are misusing academic language to mask a modification to your claim under interrogation. You specifically argued against “an awareness awakening by the sick individual that would bring a healthier lifestyle“ by stating it is “better off not worrying about it and enjoying your life.” You are now attempting to amend that claim by saying well of course you’re in favor of knowing about the bad things. So what does this mean, that you actually support looking at a hypothetical comprehensive list, just that it should be sorted by severity so you don’t have to sweat the small stuff? That would be a fundamental modification of your original claim which had no such qualification.