Thursday, December 27, 2007

When Will They Learn?

Bayes' Rule, dammit, Bayes' Rule! You don't go giving tests to everyone for a disease without having some prior reason to think they might have it! The false positives will almost certainly outweigh the true positives.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Babes rule! I couldn't agree more. The hotter the better.

Jenny said...

I guess social profiling to peg mothers who are most likely to be infected is illegal...

Lippard said...

This is going to be a repeat of the HIV testing to get a marriage license laws in Louisiana (lasted seven months before repeal) and Illinois (lasted twenty months before repeal). The cost per genuine positive test is going to be enormous, and the cost per false positive is going to be a lot of unnecessary fear.