The history and physical exam are firmly established methods in the practice of medicine, with an ancient pedigree. Their origins can be traced 2500 years ago to Hippocrates, who naturalized the concept of disease and introduced the methodology of the history and physical exam. Diseases no longer needed divine explanations, but could be studied like… Continue reading The History and Physical
Tag: False Positives
Drowned in (False) Positives
In most real-world biological ecosystems where stimuli are often riddled with ambiguity, predictions are inherently probabilistic, and resources are time and computation constrained, organisms are forced to navigate the trade-offs between false-positives and false-negatives and the opportunity costs of (in)action. For example, if a feeding animal senses the presence of a possible predator, at the… Continue reading Drowned in (False) Positives
Death by Dashboards
Due to the glacial pace of evolutionary adaptation in many if not most ways, the genome could be considered a lagging indicator. It is tuned to invariants of a bygone regime - the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA). Life would probably be not as robust and diversified if it had to solely rely on a… Continue reading Death by Dashboards
Fluency and Its Illusions
Although we think of information overload as a contemporary phenomenon, throughout evolutionary history organisms have always had to grapple with a world brimming with noisy data. Ever present and life threatening features such as camouflaged prey, lurking predators, strategizing competitors, invasive species, weather changes, and insecure food supply have always been part of the challenges… Continue reading Fluency and Its Illusions
S-Fxn 