Difference between revisions of "881: Probability"
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| − | [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are sitting on a hospital bed reading a piece of paper, with the statistics for {{w|breast cancer}} survival. It looks like Megan has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The line represents the survival rate distribution: 81% are alive at 5 years, while 77% survive to 10 years. | + | [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are sitting on a hospital bed reading a piece of paper, with the statistics for {{w|breast cancer}} survival. It looks like Megan has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The line represents the survival rate distribution: 81% are alive at 5 years, while 77% survive to 10 years. The IV drip in the corner is probably for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotherapy/ chemotherapy], a common treatment for cancer. |
As the title text says, my normal approach is useless here: [[55: Useless]]. | As the title text says, my normal approach is useless here: [[55: Useless]]. | ||
Revision as of 21:14, 19 January 2014
| Probability |
 Title text: My normal approach is useless here, too. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: The difference between the two lines have to be explained. If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks. |
As the title text says, my normal approach is useless here: 55: Useless.
Randall posted this blog post two months after posting this strip explaining the cancer strips.
Transcript
- [A plot of years vs. percent, with a solid and a dashed line. The solid line starts at 100%, and drops constantly. The dashed line starts around 85%, rises to 95% after 5 years, then drops.]
- [A simple table.]
- 5 years 81%
- 10 years 77%
- [Two people are sitting on a bench, next to an IV drip hanging from a rack. One is holding a paper.]
- Cueball: You know, probability used to be my favorite branch of math
- Cueball: Because it had so many real-life applications.
- [They embrace, faces together.]
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refresh comments!Discussion
I've been through this, even though it was a little over a year ago, this strip brings me back to how I tried to rationalise the probabilities to deal with the news, and the only thing I could think of was "I want a better number, god, noodle-monster, anybody, please, give me a better number".
John 60.225.31.6 00:40, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
Can anyone please provide an update to this page on Randall's fiance's health? Apologies if this is common knowledge. I agree with John's reaction. I wanted a better number for my wife back in the spring of 2008, and got it. She survived 3 years instead of the (then) predicted average of six months for inflammatory breast cancer. We could have been just an outlier on the low probability end of the curve, but I like to think the medical community is continually improving their curves, and I am very grateful for the extra time. She passed away four days after this strip was posted - which explains why I haven't seen this strip until now.
108.162.216.228 21:26, 28 November 2013 (UTC)Grant
So, how is this incomplete? Can we remove the incompleteness mark? --173.245.53.196 13:02, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
I think the linking to the blog post is more sensitive than explaining it here. Remove tag? --141.101.98.207 14:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
What is the dashed line? It kind of looks like it might be the derivative of the solid line.108.162.214.53 00:39, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
I think I explained the dashed line, it's a hazard function or at least it would be a plausible hazard function for that kind of survival function. Feel free to improve the formatting or remove the incomplete tag. --Artod (talk) 07:06, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
TEN YEARS 172.69.33.179 17:38, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
