Good morning.
- The power of negative thinking.
- Women in Pakistan.
- The beltway and Hoover.
- West on West.
- That would be it (the end) … what other conclusion could you draw?
- Patriarch Pavle and a poem.
- Software and science.
- La chocolate and sin.
- Oops.
- If true, this should be a damning indictment of government roles in healthcare.
- Logic and evangelism.
- Verse.
If true, this should be a damning indictment of government roles in healthcare.
It would appear it is not. http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstfab.htm has the members of the preventive care task force and I see quite a few MD’s. True I don’t see anyone who lists their specialty as oncologist, although IMO this does seem more like an epidemologist type question.
But here is the problem, out of 1000 mammograms only 2 cancers are detected and 98 false positives. False positives mean painful biopsies, needless fear. I wouldn’t also be surprised if there’s some long term increase in breast cancer risk due to biopsies (cutting into healthy tissue, requiring it to heal seems like the type of thing that could trigger cancerous cell growth down the line). Of course if you just want to focus on the positives of mammograms and not the costs then why start at 40? Why not do quarterly mammograms starting at age 15 for every woman in the US and yearly mammograms for men? No doubt there are examples of people who would have been saved had such a policy been in effect.
Of course you won’t learn that from reading the Commentary piece. Nor would you learn that neither the panel nor the health bill prohibits anyone from getting a mammogram whenever they want.
You are right, though. This is a damming indictment but not of gov’t roles in health care or the panel but of the right’s role in the health care debate. Keep note, the right has staked out by far the most radical position ever articulated in health care policy. Any cost containment, any restraint on what gov’t will pay for or even recommendations that may cause a private insurance company to restrain what they will pay for is a ‘death panel’. This would mark the right as a clear and present danger to America’s economy if it were not for the fact that they are consistent only in their lies. Not even a year ago the very same characters were demanding extreme Medicare cuts and rationing via an accross the board, unflexible spending freeze as their response to the stimulus debate. It’s not even worth saying this or that policy being advocated by the right is destructive because ultimately you can’t even trust what they say they support.
Oops
Does this mean he will win the endorsement of the Conservative supporters of Vitter or S.C.’s governor?
Zinggggg! Burned!
And where did the mammogram every year for women over 40 come from? The same place, see http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstf09/breastcancer/brcanup.htm footnote #1. The over 40 recommendation was issued with the available data as of 2002.
Some damming indictment.
That would be it (the end) … what other conclusion could you draw?
I hope I’m not overwhelming with too many comments but I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we perceive reality and trust that our beliefs are, in fact, true. I’m more and more inclined to believe that more often than not our beliefs are not very trustworthy. Our inclination to believe what we want to believe is almost always overwhelming unless extraordinary efforts are made or the false belief leads to such dramatic consquences that it is not viable (say a belief that jumping off buildings is good for you).
So I think the more interesting question is if the time machine was invented and the tomb was never empty would many Christians believe it? Or would the religion be rewritten in such a way to square the circle….say with some type of ‘symbolic’ emptiness or going the route of creationists and trying to nitpick reality to death (say the time machine is only showing us the past of some alternative universe?).
More intellectually minded Christians might respond with a play on Burke and assert that for a religion like Christianity to have survived so long, inspired so much and held onto people’s imaginations there must be something true about it even if a simple examination of reality says there isn’t.
See my older comments about the economics of belief. People will tend to believe what is least costly to believe. Ditching your honestly and deeply held faith is very costly. People, IMO, won’t do it even if ‘the facts’ say they should.
Boonton,
Working backwards ….
Whenever I’ve seen this question raised … I’ve held (and others have said the same) that following Paul (1st Corinthians 15:14) “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” I hold with that statement.
On mammograms: As I said, “If true” meaning if it was true that policy is being set without consultation with doctors then that’s a strong indictment. You’ve noted that there were perhaps some doctors on board … just not perhaps the right sort. My problem with setting policy universally is that policy such as this shouldn’t be universal. The frequency of testing isn’t just a epidemiological issue. It’s personal. Factors such as family history, personal attitudes toward cancer, personal financial situations as well as epidemiology contribute.
? Huh?
I have? How so?
On mammograms: As I said, “If true” meaning if it was true that policy is being set without consultation with doctors then that’s a strong indictment. You’ve noted that there were perhaps some doctors on board … just not perhaps the right sort.
I’m not seeing support for that. We have internists, gp’s, obgyns and nurses. The board is heavy with doctors. You can argue that oncologists should be there but to be honest with you I’m not seeing why that would make a difference. Assuming they were roughly the same in 2002, this is the same mix that came up with the original recommendations that the Repbulicans presumably feel should be written in stone. The argument that the board should have oncologists is not coming from a desire to see better analysis of the data but a different result. IMO an oncologist is best suited for addressing an individual case of cancer but not the more epidemiological questions addressed by the recommendations.
My problem with setting policy universally is that policy such as this shouldn’t be universal. The frequency of testing isn’t just a epidemiological issue. It’s personal. Factors such as family history, personal attitudes toward cancer, personal financial situations as well as epidemiology contribute.
The problem is that a universal policy is universal. If you were running, say, an HMO you would have to answer whether or not you’d pay for mammograms for otherwise healthy women under 40, or 50. As the table 1 shows on http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/uspstf09/breastcancer/brcanup.htm, you need to have 1904 mammograms done on the 39-49 set to prevent 1 cancer death. On the 60-69 set only 377. Of course family history should change this recommendation. The recommendation is talking about a random sampling of the population of women 39-49 or 60-69. The numbers will be different if you, say, tested women 39-49 with at least one relative who had breast cancer or who test positive for some gene associated with breast cancer. Or if you were dealing only with the population of woman who have found a lump in their breasts. That, though, means you’re taking the 1904 woman screened in the random screening and filtering them down….let’s say to 500. 1404 women then aren’t screened which may potentially leave a cancer undetected.
This is the second problem with your objection, it isn’t a universal policy. Oncologists don’t set up health fairs and solicit random women off the street for mammograms, which is the type of thing this recommendation is geared towards. Oncologists work with detailed histories and evaluations beyond simply knowing their patient is a woman of a certain age and who has breasts. Which is why the recommendation explicitly states that clinical evaluation should override the ‘rules of thumb’ it establishes.
In terms of health coverage, it is reasonable to say that certain procedures will not be covered without evidence that they are economical. This is why most insurance pays for routine mammograms for women but for men requires some clinical indication first. People are free to pay for care over and above what they have through insurance. Somewhere I’m sure is a woman whose getting mammograms every 6 months rather than 1 year.
Keep note, the right has staked out by far the most radical position ever articulated in health care policy.
By equating any and all cost containment with unacceptable ‘death panels’. By also equating lack of coverage for something with denial of coverage, we also seem to have a radical type of welfare being preached by the right these days. To use the example I cited earlier, the right seems to think that if you reach 65 you’re entitled to unlimited single payer style healthcare. See, for example, the treatment of Medicare Advantage by the GOP. If you’re a 55 year old uncovered single mother of teens who finds a lump in her breast, though, you’re out of luck.
This would all be a lot more distrubing if the right didn’t sign on to a radical ‘freeze’ and rationing of Medicare not even a year ago as a response to the stimulus package.
Whenever I’ve seen this question raised … I’ve held (and others have said the same) that following Paul (1st Corinthians 15:14) “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” I hold with that statement.
Which requires a finding of fact: Determine whether or not Christ has risen. My gut feeling, and maybe I’m just too cycnical these days, is that most will make that finding based on what is easier for them to believe. A time machine might make it a bit harder to hold a false view of whether or not Christ rose, but I wouldn’t underestimate our power to self-deceieve esp. when it has no impact on our day to day lives. What do I mean by that. Well let’s say its absurd to believe JFK was killed by anyone other than Oswald. Lots of people do believe that. It has no impact on their lives. Accepting the truth would not make their lives any easier, in fact might make life more uncomfortable. Hence they simply won’t. Contrast that with a belief that jumping off buildings is safe. Such a belief will produce lots of nasty immediate problems for believers. They will find it easier to adjust their beliefs to the truth of reality.
This opinion is not too far from your stance on global warming and scientific analysis. You hear YouTube has some documentary making the argument that the Dali Lama is indeed reincarnated from all the previous ones. You stumble accross some Hindu site purporting to show proof that one of their gods really walked the earth at some spot. Do you stop and analyze this or do you move on filing this in your mind under ‘stuff I already made up my mind about’?
Back when I was hanging out a lot on Joe Carter’s old EO site, one argument he would make against evolution now and then goes like this:
Evolution shows our existence is due to random forces.
There’s no particular reason to think it would produce brains capable of making true statements about reality.
Therefore why assume the first statement is true?
That’s one influence on my thought. Here’s two more.
For a while now, I’ve been having to watch the same TV my father-in-law watches. This is generous amounts of True TV reality clips at night (mostly people doing stupid things like getting their cars repoed or chased by cops) or if I’m home during the day Murry (“You are NOT the father”) or Jerry Springer.
Another is I caught most of Jesse Ventura’s ‘Conspiracy Theory’ show. The first episode concerned an array of radio antenas in Alaska. It culminated, in the last 5 minutes, with Jesse telling the camera straight faced that he now believes the gov’t is controlling our minds with radio waves.
This contributes to my pet theory, our brains are not very good at telling the truth. They are very good at constructing narratives or stories. These stories help us go about our daily business. For example, the mother tells herself that she is a great person and the father of her child is a horrible person. This helps motivate her to get up every day and care for her child, go out to work, etc. This narrative works great for her, until she gets on the show and the DNA test confirms what the ‘jerk’ of a guy has been telling everyone since the baby was born, it’s not his. Being exposed as a liar leaves her stunned and at a loss for a while. But gradually a new narrative is constructed and she is able to return to some type of healthy existence.
These stories that we tell ourselves are likely to be untrue to some degree or another. In cases where it impacts our immediate survival, they are more likely to be true for evolutionary reasons. Even crazy people who live on the street who declare themselves God or Superman seem to know not to jump in front of subways or drink bleach. In cases where it doesn’t, all bets are off. Hence what people believe about evolution, the Holocaust, whether or not God rose from the dead two thousand years ago, is likely to be as much a function of what works for them as it is what the evidence really tells us.
I’m not saying the cause of truth is hopeless. I think this bias can be overcome if you put a lot of effort into making the truth about some distant issue a focus of your efforts. But this comes at a cost. Dedicating yourself to determining the true causes of the French Revolution can very well leave you open to believing nonsense about other less essential questions like whether or not the West is destined to be at war with Islam…whether Civil Rights Movement was really a Soviet front operation…whether the flu vaccine is a hoax…or whether radio towers in Alaska are part of a gov’t program to control the weather.
Boonton,
What? You’re not seeing support for what you said? I’m confused here.
Let’s be clear here. I’m not defending a “generic” position “staked out by the right.” My position is that the position staked out by the left is harmful. However, I’m not signed on to the rhetoric and reasons as stated by the right … but in part that is because the policies and positions I support don’t have to, well, get elected.
I disagree. The core “committed Christians” who believe do what is not easier. It is not “easier” for me to be a Christian … I wouldn’t be struggling to get closer to a tithe, wouldn’t be helping the homeless, could sleep in on Sunday morning, Saturday nights would be free, …. the list goes on. My conversion started with the conviction, triggered by reading Chesterton of all things, that Christianity was right and I’m following through with the consequences. I’ve oft noted the book Father Arseny. You can’t tell me that the thousands (millions) of those persecuted and imprisoned for decades in Soviet Russia on account of just “being Christian” did so because it is “easier” for them to believe. It is not easier. Really trying to “take up your cross and follow Him” is hard.
Let’s be clear here. I’m not defending a “generic” position “staked out by the right.” My position is that the position staked out by the left is harmful. However, I’m not signed on to the rhetoric and reasons as stated by the right … but in part that is because the policies and positions I support don’t have to, well, get elected.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘generic’. The right has been pretty specific. They oppose all cuts to projected future medicare spending and consider such to be “killing grandma” or less dramatically reducing benefits to seniors. The left in this debate has staked out a much more practical and balanced position. They have also staked out a position that anything not specifically covered in a gov’t program or group insurance is being denied to you. Hence the brouhaha over mammograms. This, of course, leads to the position that anything Medicare says no to is denying a senior of something but people who are too young for Medicare are entirely on their own.
If the right really felt this way, this position would lead to fiscal diaster. we know, though, that they don’t which is why the charge is dishonesty.
As for you having to worry about getting elected, look the right is taking specific stands here that have very specific policy implications. There are people who think Medicare should be left exactly as is. If the right is saying that, then they should know they are getting that by supporting the right. If not can you guys please publish a cheat sheet so we know what you mean? Tell us that “No Medicare cuts” means “Medicare cuts when we are in power”.
I disagree. The core “committed Christians” who believe do what is not easier. It is not “easier” for me to be a Christian … I wouldn’t be struggling to get closer to a tithe, wouldn’t be helping the homeless, could sleep in on Sunday morning, Saturday nights would be free, …. the list goes on.
Because you have a narrative that makes all these actions logical. Likewise consider the many children who make an effort to be good because it fits the Santa Claus narrative that good children get presents on Christmas. For them those actions are hard but the narrative makes them logical. However we know the Santa Claus narrative is untrue. Nonetheless many go with it because it is generally harmless and actually often helpful.
Your narrative may, like the mother on Maurry, cover up some truths that are bit harder to accept. Maybe you are better off tithing because your nature is to waste your money and time. Tithing provides you with motivation to be better with all of your income. Perhaps without this ‘struggle’ to keep to the Christian narrative your life would be a wasteland with you addicted to porn, your marriage falling apart, your credit ruined on wasteful spending, your boss looking to fire you, and so on.
In a real sense the Christian narrative may be easier for you to follow even though it seems hard. The alternative is to face up to the deep flaws you may indeed have that would keep you from having the life you want. So the little kid is being good becaue he buys the Santa story which covers up the truth that his inclination is to be bad. You try to be good because you think God is telling you to wake up early Sunday morning when your nature is to be a lazy slob. Maybe easier isn’t the right word here, maybe ‘works’ is. The narrative works for you as it does for millions of people.
But this is my point, we are all deeply inclined towards narratives that work for us. The Santa narrative works because it makes it easier for the child to gain parental approval and score toys. Easier than the more honest but colder, rational motto of “figure out how your parents want you to behave and do it”.
I don’t know if you can remember your childhood enough to recall if you really believed in Santa but if you did try to recall how you gave up that belief. I may be wrong but I don’t think it was an instant but more of a process. There was a fuzzy point where I was saying something to myself like “I’m going to keep with this belief a little bit longer”….in other words asking myself not what is true in the real world but what works for me and replacing Santa only when a new narrative was in place firmly enough to pick up the job of the old one.
But note that what works only sometimes lines up with the truth. For the child being good does help get more toys but not because the Santa story is true. Likewise even the more materialistic narrative of “do what mommy and daddy want and they get me more toys” doesn’t exactly line up with the truth (you’ll get fewer toys if daddy gets laid off regardless of how hard you try at being good).
So the question is if presented with absolute proof that their faith is false, will most Christians accept that? I would say human nature would tell us no, they wouldn’t. Not unless a counter-narrative was easily available that does most of the work the now defunct one did.
Boonton,
I’ve been Christian for 5 or 6 years, married for 15 and have worked for the same employer for 19. I was a avid reader then and remain so although my subject matter has shifted. The point being that suggesting that my faith is saving me from being fallen isn’t exactly tenable.
My point is that your economic or “what’s easier” explanation may work for some but not for me … and not, I think, for many very committed Christians. Recall (again) my point about Fr Arseny.
You want to have your cake and to eat it too. The claim made by the new Atheists is that morality doesn’t require God. If you accept that, you can’t also claim that I would not be moral outside of my faith.
Boonton,
It occurs for me “easier” for you and your discussions of truth and so on cut to the the essence of ethics … and I for one don’t think economics is the answer, although some might ground their ethics in economic thought.
Ethics is the study of the good. We do what is seen as good, for which I take you’ve substituted “easier” but the concept is the same … and for many perhaps easier=good, but it isn’t generalizable. What is true is that every choice we make, everyone good or those thought evil make their choices based on their view and conception of what is best, i.e., choosing the good.
Your secondary argument is that the good for many is not connected with the true. Yet, isn’t that the point of the self-examined life? To examine what we consider good and try to align it with what we can understand as the good, the true and the beautiful?
I’ve been Christian for 5 or 6 years, married for 15 and have worked for the same employer for 19. I was a avid reader then and remain so although my subject matter has shifted. The point being that suggesting that my faith is saving me from being fallen isn’t exactly tenable.
So you were realtively healthy before becoming a Christian (or becoming a more serious one?) Your dedication to cycling likewise hints that just maybe you like pushing yourself with serious discipline and rigerous training. Might this indicate then that the Christian narrative does really work for you? Yes its hard but you also like it hard.
You want to have your cake and to eat it too. The claim made by the new Atheists is that morality doesn’t require God. If you accept that, you can’t also claim that I would not be moral outside of my faith.
Let’s back up here so there’s no misunderstandings. I’m using Santa to illustrate how people may be committed to a narrative that on many levels works for them that nevertheless isn’t true. I’m not saying that all narratives are untrue. We can have the same conversation by asking how atheists would respond to the time machine showing the tomb was empty.
I don’t know if you would be moral with or without your faith. In reality I just don’t know. You might have an inclination for morality and seek out narratives that support that. Or you might have found more rewards in a moral direction than an immoral one and you’ve been seeking out better and better narratives that support that. There are some, I’m sure, who seek out and find Christanity from different inclinations. Perhaps as a show of rebellion and independence? There are Christian narratives that work on that level too you know.
The sociological question was how would Christians respond to the time machine, I think most would seek to continue Christianity because living without a narrative is very expensive. They would seek to preserve the narrative at the expense of truth. Think here about creationists and militant ‘young earth’ types. Do you think they are so forceful in their stance because they are simply seeing the evidence in a different way or do you think they have committed themselves to a narrative that, for some reason, requires creationism or young-earthism to be true for their Christianity to be true? I think you’re seeing a real life example of what would happen with such a time machine hypothetical.
Your secondary argument is that the good for many is not connected with the true. Yet, isn’t that the point of the self-examined life? To examine what we consider good and try to align it with what we can understand as the good, the true and the beautiful?
I’m not saying that easier is good. I’m saying that we should try to be as honest and clear as possible about how we as humans perceive and act in the real world. We live in a lot of deception and its not because the world is deceptive but because we crave to be deceived. The Truth is very heavy and carrying it takes a lot of strength and energy. I suspect we have to pretend to do it for the same reason baby craws before he can walk or run.
That being the case, this is a very important thing to talk about because it means a lot of things that feel very, very true to ourselves might simply be false to one degree or another and its very important to understand why they nevertheless feel so true. I think many Christians are too inclined to think that being true is the easy, natural thing. I think its the opposite, its a hard unnatural thing. If you can be true about even a tiny slice of life, like the causes of the French Revolution, that would be very important and very valuable.
A few other conclusions:
1. This implies no one has a monopoly on truth or falsehood. The guy you admire the most is almost certainly wrong about a lot of things and your enemy can still teach you things of value.
2. You should accept the very strong possibility that you are wrong about a lot of things. Maybe 50% or more. But don’t think you know which 50%!
3. #1 and #2 imply humility is a very important virtue.
And it doesn’t mean I think following an ‘easy narrative’ is better than the truth. Let’s go back to the Santa thing again. Suppose the kid drops Santa and adopts the narrative “my parents buy me toys as a reward for doing what they say”. This narrative may work more often because it probably is more in line with reality than Santa. This doesn’t mean that understanding reality isn’t better. If this kid’s dad gets laid off, he might find the toys start to dry off. If he’s committed to the narrative he will feel frustrated and angry and feel like he is either being cheated or he will become neurotic….obsessed with trying to figure out what he did wrong to make his parents mad at him. Think about how much relief it would be for him to have some understanding of reality from his parents POV where toys must come out of a budget that pays all the bills.
This isn’t a retread of ‘reality is in your mind’ or perception trumps reality. Its actually the other way around. Reality trumps our perceptions but since we have only our perceptions we are more like blind men than seeing men…..we act like seeing men too often rushing around as if we know the layout of the room and the only reason we don’t trip and crack our skulls is luck.