A day later, I’ve been pointed to some nice writings but scientists and statisticians. See here: http://pb204.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/science-by-press-release.html A few things become clear: 1) the coverage is of the press release, not the actual paper but 2) there are still major problems in the assumptions of the paper. The “luck” appears to be mostly an artifact of …
Continue reading “More on Cancer, Luck, and Behavioural causes”
A new Johns Hopkins study finds “luck” as a major cause of cancer. This is a great example of how medical research turns social conditions into inevitability and writes ideology (the order of things is given and unchangeable) as if it were science. While there is talk of personal responsibility as a possible cause for …
Continue reading “Medical Research as Ideology: Cancer is Luck”
It’s been a really complicated year–some major highs and lows. We’ve spent the last couple days on unfinished business: seeing Laura Poitras’ gripping CITIZEN FOUR (highly recommended), doing our donations for the year, and it looks like I am actually going to get an article revised that I thought I might not be able to …
So after having three (yes 3) of my doctoral students defend their dissertations Monday and Tuesday, my reward was to spend yesterday and today getting tests and doctoring. The good news is that they have decided to go back to watchful waiting for now. I will have another full body scan in three months (this time …
It’s American thanksgiving! I’m thankful for my wonderful family and friends (some of whom I will see tonight at a potluck), KITTENS and CARRIE, great colleagues and students, as well as for the kindness of strangers. Since I last posted, I got a little information on Inspire.com but the ThyCa people managed to manually add …
So the radioactive iodine didn’t work. Of course “didn’t work” is a bit of an abstract concept. You will recall that the possible outcomes ranged from complete annihilation of the metastatic thyroid cancer cells in my lungs to, well, nothing. It definitely didn’t get rid of the cells. If it slowed or stopped the growth, …
Tastebuds are mostly back! Tuesday night I arrived home tired, and didn’t feel like cooking. t took out some left over tabbouleh from the weekend. I ate it and thought “wow, this tastes good.” When I realized that 3-day old tabbouleh doesn’t usually taste better than newer tabbouleh, I went over to the butter dish, rubbed …
