Why Dont You Blog?

Ok, it is generally accepted that “luck” is a very difficult concept to quantify scientifically. Everyone has their own idea what it is and some people even think it has a “cause” and can be manipulated. Gamblers have a notoriously twisted idea of what “luck” is and how it can seemingly overcome mathematical certainties. Historically, humans from every corner of the globe have even objectified it into religions and religious icons. For some reason, certain Christians have a pagan approach to luck and think praying to the invisible will influence “luck” in their favour. All very strange.

Anyway, in view of this, I have spent the last few weeks carrying out an experiment that I am, as I have always suspected, cursed with bad luck… My PC is not possessed by the devil, it doesn’t hate me, I am just very unlucky - which is why every time I need an internet connection it goes down. This is not good news, but at least it explains why every week I do the national lottery and, despite the odds, I never get a single number. Ever. Now, part of me suspects the odds against that are greater than the odds against winning the lottery, but now I know the real reason©™.

My experiment has been simple. There are, basically, two routes I can take from work to get home. Because of the hideous nature of road traffic, my journey home normally takes in excess of an hour and I travel at the majestic average speed of 29mph. Aren’t modern cars wonderful. The upside of this mind numbing tedium is that I have time to think about things, and I realised that no matter which route I take, it takes me about the same lenght of time to get home and more importantly whatever lane I choose, the other goes faster.

Any drivers out there will undoubtedly share that experience. You are stuck in snail like traffic and all around you the cars are going faster. You change lane, only to discover the other lane has started moving. It is more than a little annoying.

So, during my thinking, I decided to see what was the best thing to do. Should I pick a lane and stay in it? Should I change as much as possible and fight my way forward. I know strong advocates of both options. Add to this, which route should I take?

From this, my experiment was formed… The plan was, over the course of several weeks to drive home a different way each time. Weeks 1 - 3 I would take “Route A” and then weeks 4 - 6 would be “Route B”. Although all at about the same time of day, each week would be either staying in the left hand lane, staying in the right hand lane or changing lanes as instinct dictates. As a “control” for the first two weeks, I would make a note of a car that joined about the same time as I did but in the other lane and see if they were ahead or behind me.

Anyway, today it all ended and the results were in. The basic conclusion is that I am cursed with bad luck. Seriously.

The average journey times for both routes was about 1hr 30mins (with very little deviation), giving me an average speed of 31mph. Wonderful eh? It seems that neither route was better, and changing lanes was no faster or slower than staying put. Also, it didn’t really matter what lane I was in, the time was pretty much the same.

Weirder still came when I was doing the “single lane” part. Every single time, every day for four of the six weeks, what ever lane I was in turned out to be the slowest. Without fail, a vehicle that joined the traffic the same time as me, would make faster progress if they were in a different lane to me. In some instances the other lane was going so fast I lost the vehicle (and visibility on this stretch is quite far), while in others, they were only a few minutes ahead of me - but they were ALWAYS ahead.

Like I said, the only redeeming feature of this is at least now I know why I never get a single number on the lottery. Maybe Luck hates Atheists. Or just me…

Popularity: 26% [?]

Popularity: 26% [?]

Hopefully the last blog entry on cancer and fate and the (in my mind) insanity that people put getting cancer as being due to “fate.”

Popularity: 15% [?]

Now, as mentioned in the past I am a big fan of the Respectful Insolence blog and I regularly use it as a jumping off point when I go blogsurfing. Also, I have in the past been forced to admit I am wrong and where required correct previously posted statements. Today, it seems I may be heading down this road again, but I am not sure yet.

Previously, I mentioned to apparent oddity of British people thinking that developing cancer or not was down to fate. This was fairly quickly challenged by a post here (albeit by a biased poster) which initially I ignored. My take on heather’s post was that it was just a bit of semantic pedantry and I could ignore it. Today, however, after reading Orac’s post I see I may have been making too much of a broad brush judgement.

Now, heather quite rightly points out (as does a lot of Orac’s post) that chance does have the “final say” as to whether or not a person will develop a cancer. I agree and this isn’t what my complaint about poor education was meant to imply. Heather points out:

My point is that - even cancers caused by heavy irradiation are due to chance, although the chance may approach 100% with regard to certain substances. With most cancers, you can only consider the impact of lifestyle choices statistically. (And having some acquaintance with epidemiology, I can say this is a pretty arcane art).

And I cant really say anything which disagrees with this.

My point is, and I am painfully aware now that this is an assumption, the way I read the study was not that people believed their chance of developing cancer was a risk which was affected by various lifestyle and genetic factors but remained (non the less) a “chance” event.

I read the report on the survey as suggesting that the people thought the chance of them developing cancer was entirely down to fate with no impact from their lifestyle choices. My own discussions with British people (whilst not exactly being a survey) suggests this is about right. I know people who smoke 20 a day with almost no fear of cancer (putting developing it down to “fate”) but baulk at the thought of eating a foodstuff which may prove to contain a minute trace of a carcinogenic compound.
This leads nicely to one part of respectful insolence I actually don’t agree with.

Only people who have never tried to convince patients to change such lifestyles for the benefit of their health would so blithely attribute this belief in “fate” to stupidity or ignorance. In some cases it may be stupidity or ignorance, but in the majority of cases it probably is not. For instance, 90% of the people in the U.K survey knew that smoking increased the odds of developing cancer, and that still didn’t stop a significant proportion from attributing whether smokers get cancer or not to “fate.” It’s all easy from the air to dismiss patients as being “ignorant” or “stupid,” but it won’t help to persuade them that there are indeed actions that they can take themselves to decrease their risk of developing cancer.

Now, it strikes me that here Orac is no longer arguing that the people thinking developing cancer is down to fate are ignorant or not, he is simply saying the “patient” should not be thought of as ignorant. This is a wonderful point of view for a doctor to take but, at the risk of being rude, is fairly meaningless. Yes, it may not help persuade patients to modify their lifestyle but that certainly does not falsify the idea.

All in all, I stand corrected with the automatic assumption that the report implied the people thought it was Fate / Chance and no other factor. I (currently) still think that people who do think it is Fate / Chance and not lifestyle factors are poorly educated or stupid (or both).

I will try to retain an open mind though.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Popularity: 16% [?]