A test like will have very low sensitivity, being unable to detect most adulterants added to drinks, and low specificity as well, given that colorimetry is a bad way to detect a substance which differs more by specific gravity than color, and given that drinks are seldom clear to begin with.
A false positive could have unfortunate social outcomes for everyone involved, a false negative would create unwarranted confidence, spiked drinks are uncommon enough that it's a safe bet that false one or the other would be the normal outcome, and the damned thing is, the cup is known to already contain the most common date rape drug in existence, ethanol.
I disagree, a bad test can lead to a false sense of security which can translate to more harm than before in cases when the test produces a false negative and the person has lowered their guard due to the presence of a test.
Comments
A bad test is worse than no test.
This is a very bad test. Cute paper, but I hope anyone foolish enough to try and deploy such an app gets a strongly-worded letter from FDA.
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Alright.
A test like will have very low sensitivity, being unable to detect most adulterants added to drinks, and low specificity as well, given that colorimetry is a bad way to detect a substance which differs more by specific gravity than color, and given that drinks are seldom clear to begin with.
A false positive could have unfortunate social outcomes for everyone involved, a false negative would create unwarranted confidence, spiked drinks are uncommon enough that it's a safe bet that false one or the other would be the normal outcome, and the damned thing is, the cup is known to already contain the most common date rape drug in existence, ethanol.
I disagree, a bad test can lead to a false sense of security which can translate to more harm than before in cases when the test produces a false negative and the person has lowered their guard due to the presence of a test.
It sounds like you're agreeing with OP, who said a bad test is worse than no test. Isn't that what you're saying too?
I think y'all are saying the same thing.