What would you do if you just found out you have eight months to live? Would you continue you daily routine: wake up, work, come home, sleep, and repeat? Would you withdraw all the money from your savings, travel and do all the wild things you dreamt of doing? I myself might plan an eight-month trip to see the world, eat my favorite foods with no regret, and tell everyone I love how much they mean to me. With that being said, when Harvard Professor Stephen Jay Gould heard that exact phrase after his diagnosis of abdominal mesothelioma, his reaction was to find out how to survive the incurable disease. With his knowledge of statistics and the concepts of mean and median, he soon realized that the “Median isn’t the Message”.
Throughout the article, …show more content…
I think he believes it gives false data in a sense that lives may be at risk and he wants to share the misconception with the world. He knows that statistics do not predict the future or even apply to everyone in the same position (considering people have different immune systems, ways of handling stress, other health problems, living conditions, etc. ). He was determined to make sure his death was not a statistic of mortality, but one of hope. In his article, he urges people to read between the lines, understand the disease, and learn how the survivors survived so that others might follow. Remember, knowledge is …show more content…
I do believe that in circumstances like this one, there should be two graphs recognized. One like the one Gould found, the mortality rate, and one that shows the survival rate. I believe showing people the chances they have to survive will give people that hope that they were unable to have before, especially since most people are not trained in statistics and unable to see the importance of the tail-end of a right-skewed graph. I include that the original graph should be shown to patients as well, so that they understand that their condition is very serious and that the doctor is not liable for giving patients a false understanding of their
Throughout the article, …show more content…
I think he believes it gives false data in a sense that lives may be at risk and he wants to share the misconception with the world. He knows that statistics do not predict the future or even apply to everyone in the same position (considering people have different immune systems, ways of handling stress, other health problems, living conditions, etc. ). He was determined to make sure his death was not a statistic of mortality, but one of hope. In his article, he urges people to read between the lines, understand the disease, and learn how the survivors survived so that others might follow. Remember, knowledge is …show more content…
I do believe that in circumstances like this one, there should be two graphs recognized. One like the one Gould found, the mortality rate, and one that shows the survival rate. I believe showing people the chances they have to survive will give people that hope that they were unable to have before, especially since most people are not trained in statistics and unable to see the importance of the tail-end of a right-skewed graph. I include that the original graph should be shown to patients as well, so that they understand that their condition is very serious and that the doctor is not liable for giving patients a false understanding of their