It's scary in both directions.
replyIf you let it give out tons of false positives, then patients are trained to ignore it when it cries wolf.
If you dial it back so that it gives out fewer positives, then now it starts giving out false negatives and not helping sick people.
Heh, Signal Detection Theory strikes again! This problem is as old as detecting whether a radar blip is a WW2 bomber on its way or not.
replySadly, there's no perfect threshold when the signal and noise distributions overlap substantially, just different trade-offs.
(Love CI, btw!)
You're right. I wrote a bad response at midnight. I meant to say something more narrow and specific: genomic assessments and new biomarker tests will become affordable and add information.
replyFor example, single nucleotide polymorphisms. This way doctors spend less time guessing which medication is likely to work best for you when there are many options available.
That doesn't sound like a useful test then. Instead use tests with fewer false positives.
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