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Michael Crichton on Robin Hanson
I think what this post is really telling you is that an individual's sense of clinical judgement is overrated to the point of being dangerous. A similar circumstance applies to psychologists, who are most accurate in making diagnoses when they are young, and tend to rely on checklists. Later, as experienced practicioners, they rely on clinical judgement and misdiagnose. This means that psychologists become demonstrably less skilled as they become more experienced. A sort of inversion of expertise. See Robin Dawes, House of Cards.
Here is Robin's post that evoked the comment, here are the comments. Here is the recommended book. We cannot be sure this is the Michael Crichton, you know, the Jasper Johns collector...in any case my favorite Michael Crichton novel is Sphere.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 26, 2007 at 03:32 PM in Science | Permalink
Comments
I'm assuming that you get the whole "back at ya!" aspect of an gentleman worrying about calcification and misdiagnoses ... in others.
Posted by: odograph at Apr 26, 2007 4:50:40 PM
(meant to say "an older gentleman")
Posted by: odograph at Apr 26, 2007 4:51:24 PM
I imagine doctors, psychologists and nurses will diagnose more accurately once they begin using more artificial intelligence to assist them. Of course younger practitioners will probably be more comfortable using AI. (And why is it that on the TV show House we see the doctors hitting books, but never using an expert system? Are even young, good-looking doctors that AI illiterate?)
Posted by: Ronald Brak at Apr 27, 2007 2:47:18 AM
Sphere is his best novel by a large margin. Much less anti-science than most of his books and the psychological characterizations are spot-on.
Posted by: Bod at Apr 27, 2007 3:36:28 AM
I thought I was the only one who noticed who had posted that comment to OB. Oh, well I think we can be sure that Crichton will be now be receiving a vast flood of emails from every celebrity hound who reads MR. . .
Posted by: Matthew C at Apr 27, 2007 10:06:03 AM
I'm not sure the data from psychologists will apply to other doctors.
The various categories into which people are sorted in psychology have rather vague and overapping boundaries, and are (I think!) essentially defined by a checklist: you are X if you score above 10 on this test. So presumably, to test the accuracy of the diagnosis, you run through this checklist. And obviously you'll find better correlation with the young doctors (who did the same thing, 10 min ago) than with the old ones.
It isn't obvious that the old doctors gave worse care thanks to "misdiagnosing" patients. It is also possible you could reverse their scores by asking them to diagnose according to an older edition of the DSM, on which the older doctors were presumably trained.
Posted by: Michael at Apr 27, 2007 11:21:53 AM
"I think what this post is really telling you is that an individual's sense of clinical judgement is overrated to the point of being dangerous. "
Guess Crichton wouldn't think of turning that assertion of overconfidence on his
own forays into climate science. Physician, heal thyself.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of the Great Satan at Apr 27, 2007 11:26:33 AM
once they begin using more artificial intelligence to assist them.
And when will that be? There have been fifty years of computers beating physicians. I don't think it's a matter of the young being willing to try new things.
Posted by: Douglas Knight at Apr 27, 2007 12:41:09 PM
Surely the real Michael Crighton would not
misspell "judgment" twice...
Posted by: Rich at Apr 27, 2007 12:46:32 PM
The judgment that someone is insanse is not falsifiable (what test determined that homosexuality should be removed from the DSM?), and varies highly when different psychiatrists examine the same subject. The Rosenhan experiment shows they cannot distinguish the genuinely insane from controls. That is why I think as little of much of their "expertise" and theologicans, ethicists or astrologers.
Posted by: TGGP at Apr 27, 2007 2:08:00 PM
The Great Train Robbery pwns Sphere
Posted by: Darren at Apr 27, 2007 7:56:11 PM
Memo to all avid readers, Houston we have lift off! www.caltexpress.com
22 harrowing titles avg 330 pgs penned each summer, A dentist who writes,
who knew?
Posted by: Dr Bernie Unrau DDS at Feb 18, 2008 1:40:50 AM
Posted by: sfs at Mar 31, 2008 2:04:58 AM
