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Comment on Toshiba device tests cancer types from a drop of bloodparent

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Damn, I knew I sucked at probabilities, but I apparently I didn't know how much.

I think it's pretty intuitive once your attention is called to the issue. The specific numbers aren't even that important. The general principle is that a screening test for any condition that is rare compared to the error rate isn't going to be very useful due to the large number of false positives. And most severe conditions we want to know about are rare.

We all suck at probabilities on an intuitive level. We better do the math and take the results seriously.

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