| ▲ | krunck 7 days ago | |
I wish my dentist had Sci-Am in the waiting room. But seriously, those rants quoted in the article about normal distributions and the use of the acronym "JEDI" are really, really, pathetic. A science magazine needs to be science first and politics second. Anyone who wants to reverse that should work for a different rag. | ||
| ▲ | horsawlarway 7 days ago | parent [-] | |
I mean, the normal distribution point is fairly compelling. If you actually read the piece, it's pretty clear that modeling medicine/health with a normal distribution is generally not great. It's not complaining about normal distributions, it's complaining about their application in health sciences. And in that context... it's a compelling and reasonable argument, and a lot of negative health outcomes result from applying "average" results to a specific person. I mean, the US Air Force figured this out 80 years ago... https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc... --- No comment on the "JEDI" thing. I haven't read the article so no idea if it's as unreasonable as it sounds. I would suggest that this piece as written by Reason is ultimately garbage, though. Which should surprise very few folks. | ||