3 ms·

I hate it exclusively. It's clearly better than (1) and (2), but... I talk about this with some of my med school friends that are interested in/want to create/

by tel 15y ago

I hate it exclusively. It's clearly better than (1) and (2), but... I talk about this with some of my med school friends that are interested in/want to create/hate/fear automated diagnosis. At one level, having appropriate statistics to make use of a wealth of prior experience, worldwide prevalence, epidemiological data, &c is basically a requirement for the future of proper healthcare. It's also an obvious terrible mistake to ever convince people that these statistics are anything besides a decision making tool. I think the right usage of statistics is to enlighten and confuse simultaneously, not to "answer". They should provide analytical depth to a decision, never an escape route. For this reason, I think proper statistical application is an intersection between mathematics, computer science, and UI design.

raldi 15y ago
No matter how much statistical data you reveal, you still need to present the results in some particular order. And this formula is the best ordering function I know of for things that are rated.
- tel 15y ago
  I think the situation is much more informatively modeled by a partial order though. You can induce a total order on a partial order and you can use this formula to do so conservatively, but maybe the real way to solve the problem is to create an intuitive way for users to appreciate partial orders.
radarsat1 15y ago
> I think the right usage of statistics is to enlighten and confuse simultaneously, not to "answer". They should provide analytical depth to a decision, never an escape route. You're right, but I would go further. I would argue that when statistics are presented as "the answer," in many cases they are being abused. A good scientist recognizes the limits of his dataset. Like how a computer program can only do what it is written to do, statistics can only tell you what is in the data, they can't tell you what is _not_.

by tel 15y ago

raldi 15y ago

No matter how much statistical data you reveal, you still need to present the results in some particular order. And this formula is the best ordering function I know of for things that are rated.

tel 15y ago
I think the situation is much more informatively modeled by a partial order though. You can induce a total order on a partial order and you can use this formula to do so conservatively, but maybe the real way to solve the problem is to create an intuitive way for users to appreciate partial orders.

radarsat1 15y ago

> I think the right usage of statistics is to enlighten and confuse simultaneously, not to "answer". They should provide analytical depth to a decision, never an escape route. You're right, but I would go further. I would argue that when statistics are presented as "the answer," in many cases they are being abused. A good scientist recognizes the limits of his dataset. Like how a computer program can only do what it is written to do, statistics can only tell you what is in the data, they can't tell you what is _not_.