The words of Isa last post on the disease struck me. It 's true, the disease can completely change our relationship with the body and life. And it is also true that it is more difficult for the specialist, the doctor or anyone who knows about medicine, accept the disease inside her, knowing the possible evolution. It 's harder to hope and to remember that even if the probability is against us, we are not a media and especially the media
is always an expression of central tendency does not cover all the cases. The numbers can sometimes be used against us by those who do not know or use of our brain, that can focus on one part of the set of possibilities.
express this I leave to Stephen Jay Gould, one of the leading evolutionary biologists. This difficult relationship between illness and numbers, he has lived on his skin and knows how to say it much better than I can ever do myself.
A virtual pat, with infinite affection, all the people who right now are cultivating in himself the suspicion of the disease, or his suit. And even a caress to my sister, mathematics, which will forgive this "attack" (which is not against the numbers, but against the terrorists and the numbering of numbers).
In 1982, at forty I was diagnosed Abdominal mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer and "invariably fatal" (to quote all the official reviews of the time) ... After the initial shock, when my brain began to work, I began to think about the data and the critical verdict of " eight months median mortality. " Impostai my reasoning from evolutionary biologist.
What does "median mortality of eight months"? Here philosophical error which gave rise to this book: Most people see the medium as the fundamental reality and the variation as a tool to calculate a significant measure of mainstream. In this Platonic world, "eight months median mortality" can only mean "probably will be dead in eight months," perhaps the most chilling diagnosis that you could ever read.
making a grave error if we consider a measure of the main trend as the most likely value for each individual , yet many people will commit for life. The main trend is an abstraction, the change is reality. First, we must ask ourselves what it means death "middle" ... I'm not a measurement of the main trend, be it the mean or median. I am a single human being with mesothelioma, and expect a better evaluation of my ability, because I have personal decisions to make, and my schedule can not be established by mid abstract. I need to put myself in the most probable distribution of variation that is based on the details of my personal case, I must not simply assume that my fate will correspond to some measure of central tendency ...
(...) I have been treated and cured of brave doctors who have used an experimental method that can now save other sick people when they discover the disease at an early stage was made
(...) a long way since the dark days when the diagnosis of cancer patients were carefully hidden, and for the unfortunate reason that many doctors consider the subterfuge as the best way to maintain control, both for the compassionate (and misguided) assumption that most people could not tolerate a story that was an ultimatum and a death sentence. is impossible, however, overcome the obstacles of ignorance : think of that might contribute to Franklin D. Roosevelt to our concept of disability if, instead of hiding so well with his paralysis, he had openly declared that ruled some legs ...
Stephen Jay Gould, The trees do not grow to the sky , Mondadori
baby Photo: courtesy of Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/exitdoors/2383203300/)
