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Torello comments on Open thread, September 15-21, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: gjm 15 September 2014 12:24PM

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Comment author: Torello 24 September 2014 10:57:22PM 0 points [-]

Thanks for your reply.

Do you think it would be fair to say that for rare diseases (that are not determined by single loci mutations, like Huntington's or BRCA, as you described) it's silly to get a test because a small movement in your risk profile is meaningless in that it wouldn't impact your treatment or behavior in a meaningful way?

Could you explain what you mean by:

Either way, it is a big chunk of likely mortality

Do you work in a related field? You explained this rather concisely, thanks.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 25 September 2014 12:34:58AM 0 points [-]

Whether they are about rare diseases or common diseases, almost all results that you get out of 23andMe are silly because they don't have rational effects on potential behavior. (They may have irrational effects - if you can use it motivate actions that you ought to be doing anyway, that's great. But there are also bad irrational reactions.)

Depending on your genetics, your chance of dying of heart disease might be as low as 30% or as high as 70%. (I made up those numbers; I suspect the real range evaluable with current genetics is much narrower.) Even the low number, 30% is very high. If you have a 30% of dying of something, you should think about it and react to it. Even in the best case, you still have to think about heart disease.