Damn that flu bug!

I'm guessing that article is facetious. But really I can't understand a word of it. I do think that anyone who thinks that God's responses to prayer are calculable, is, from a standard Western, monotheistic, perspective, probably guilty of blasphemy. Thank the void, that's not my problem.
 
And to think Heckman won the Nobel for his work on labor economics and not this.

His insight, as I understand it, is that Singh argued that you could estimate the reaction of an unknown thing (such as God's response to prayer) from the distribution of the known thing (such as how much people pray) if you specified a specific functional form for the reaction. Greeley's data on prayer were used to estimate the presumed response of God to prayer.

I am not that well versed in Biblical studies but it is not obvious that the g(X|Y) function is in any way related to divine behavior (i.e., when Heckman writes that a distribution must be accepted on faith he is being facetious).
 
But what would be the functional form of the reaction? It's rational up to a point to presume that the more that people do something the better an indication that they're getting something from it as long as you don't specify what it is they're getting. It may be feeling good about yourself.

I remember a more empirical study that argued that it had found a statistically significant benefit for praying for the ill in terms of their getting better (I think the praying was even done double blind). As I said, the word to describe people who think a monotheistic and aware God's responses could be measured in this way isn't scientist but blasphemer.
 
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
His insight, as I understand it, is that Singh argued that you could estimate the reaction of an unknown thing (such as God's response to prayer) from the distribution of the known thing (such as how much people pray) if you specified a specific functional form for the reaction.
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A confound here is that both the observed and the unobserved variables should apply over the same population.
 
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
And to think Heckman won the Nobel for his work on labor economics and not this.

His insight, as I understand it, is that Singh argued that you could estimate the reaction of an unknown thing (such as God's response to prayer) from the distribution of the known thing (such as how much people pray) if you specified a specific functional form for the reaction. Greeley's data on prayer were used to estimate the presumed response of God to prayer.

I am not that well versed in Biblical studies but it is not obvious that the g(X|Y) function is in any way related to divine behavior (i.e., when Heckman writes that a distribution must be accepted on faith he is being facetious).
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Instrumental variables have a long history in econometrics. I'm not sure that was Heckman's jam, but his matching (which is how I know him, isn't that what he won for?) is definitely related to the idea.

Using a measured thing (or generally) things to measure what you can't measure is pretty commonplace. That's how standardized tests work.

I'm not sure how it would work in this case though.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Really, there's no cost. The shots are provided free all over the place. That's why the cost/benefit analysis is fairly easy. I didn't get the shots for years because I never get the flu (at least I haven't for these last thirty years or so). But at a certain point, you have to figure what's the point of risking it.

As I've said, I find VLM's puritanical rhetoric off-putting and entirely unlikely to persuade anybody. But it does come down to the only reasons not to do it being, laziness, fear of needles or vaccine paranoia. The second really isn't worth answering. The third doesn't seem to stand up much to any reasonable analysis of the evidence. The first is alas incalculable.
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I don't know about puritanical, but I believe strongly that one should always get vaccinated unless there is a medical reason not to. ALL vaccines. To not do so plays a part in the sickness and death of those who cannot get vaccinated and are, thus, helpless.

These seems like a clear cut case of being a decent person or being an asshole.

Honestly, as a sort of humanist, I'm surprised you don't share my outrage.
 
originally posted by VLM:
ALL vaccines.
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I can't follow you that far. You wouldn't, for instance, vaccinate the whole population of NC against rabies, even though there is a perfectly good vaccine. Even a very low frequency of adverse events from the vaccine would shift the risk/benefit away from the good side, and rabies is so rare there would be little benefit.

And so on.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by VLM:
ALL vaccines.
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You wouldn't, for instance, vaccinate the whole population of NC against rabies, even though there is a perfectly good vaccine.
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it would do wonders for teh interwebz tho.

fb.
 
Many school systems do not allow children to participate without some vaccines. Flu vaccine is not on the list of required vaccines, although schools must be a key locus of virus transfer. What criteria do these systems apply to determine which vaccines are 'enforceable,' and why isn't flu vaccine widely included?
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by VLM:
ALL vaccines.
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I can't follow you that far. You wouldn't, for instance, vaccinate the whole population of NC against rabies, even though there is a perfectly good vaccine. Even a very low frequency of adverse events from the vaccine would shift the risk/benefit away from the good side, and rabies is so rare there would be little benefit.

And so on.
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Fair enough. I had the HPV vaccine on the brain when I wrote that and the resistance to it.

Rabies might be a bit much. I actually didn't even know there was one. I do know you have to get rabies treatment if you've had a close encounter with a bat.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Many school systems do not allow children to participate without some vaccines. Flu vaccine is not on the list of required vaccines, although schools must be a key locus of virus transfer. What criteria do these systems apply to determine which vaccines are 'enforceable,' and why isn't flu vaccine widely included?
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Some school systems "teach the controversy". I doubt there is a uniform criteria, but it's not really my thing.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
Many school systems do not allow children to participate without some vaccines. Flu vaccine is not on the list of required vaccines, although schools must be a key locus of virus transfer. What criteria do these systems apply to determine which vaccines are 'enforceable,' and why isn't flu vaccine widely included?
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I suppose a number of those regulations are from the middle of the 20th C, when people still remembered how bad polio (and tetanus and pertussis and diphtheria and...) really are.

Shall we move on to fluoridation of public water supplies?
 
originally posted by VLM:

Rabies... I actually didn't even know there was one. I do know you have to get rabies treatment if you've had a close encounter with a bat.
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Actually the treatments have been effective maybe once or twice in all human history. So you don't want to go that route. The shots you get are the vaccine. These try to provoke a sterilizing immune response before the virus marches up the nerves to your brain (hiding in the nerves is how the virus mostly evades immune surveillance, and reaching the brain, it provokes erratic, aggressive behavior, which is how it spreads).
 
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