This is...

[Mtnjim]

a major

BUMMER (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6639461.stm?ls)!

[belgareth]

Wow! no kidding!

[DrSmellThis]

It's bad, of course. But

before we all panic, it's worth noting:

* It's only one study.

* Throat cancer is a very small percentage

of all cancers, even though the vast majority of Americans engage in oral sex.

* Most exposures to HPV are

handled by the immune system, and infection never occurs.

* For the same reason, most cases of HPV go away by

themselves.

* The most serious known strains of HPV -- the ones that are known to cause cancer -- are easily

avoided; through taking the new vaccine, intended to be given to children before they become sexually active. This

is good.

* HPV caused cervical cancer claims 4000 women's lives every year; or at least that's what I read

recently. Throat cancer is looking to be caused twenty times more often by HPV than by smoking, and affects both

sexes. Yet religious conservatives have fought against the vaccine, on the grounds that it makes sex less dangerous,

and therefore interferes with (useless) abstinence only "education programs". Morons.

This wouldn't be a bad

thing to write your representative about.

[belgareth]

*

HPV caused cervical cancer claims 4000 women's lives every year; or at least that's what I read recently. Throat

cancer is looking to be caused twenty times more often by HPV than by smoking, and affects both sexes. Yet religious

conservatives have fought against the vaccine, on the grounds that it makes sex less dangerous, and therefore

interferes with (useless) abstinence only "education programs". Morons.

This wouldn't be a bad thing to write

your representative about.
Good points, Doc. I'd say religious fruitcakes but otherwise agree.

[DrSmellThis]

Religious fruitcakes it is,

then. :)

[belgareth]

You'd be better to know about

this than me but I'll share it. A few days ago several of us were talking. Remember that we are down here in the

bible belt. One guy presented the argument that excessively strong religious beliefs are a form of mental

illness-hysteria. I won't say I bought the whole argument but he made a pretty good argument. Remember that none of

us are psychologists. Basically it was four old geeks sitting under a tree drinking beer and babbling at each other.

He later extended the argument to include almost any belief system the involves irrationally following any system or

group performing anti-social acts. Take things like the eco-terrorists, Jones Town, the Nazi party and so many

others as examples.

Again, more a fun argument than anything else.

[DrSmellThis]

I just finished typing a huge,

multi-part, scholarly reply to your question, but Satan came along and caused a power outage just as I was posting

it.

[belgareth]

I guess who caused the power

failure would depend on whether you supported religion or not. The evil demons of computerology have many times

thwarted my attempts to address their tricks, even resorting to crashing my system once.

[DrSmellThis]

Hell, maybe God caused it, and

I'm Satan for having written it.

[belgareth]

Hell,

maybe God caused it, and I'm Satan for having written it.
That's always possible. While I don't support

that notion we mustn't discount any possibility. Was it Sherlock Holmes that said "When you eliminate the

impossible, what remains, no matter how improbable, is the answer." or something like that?

[DrSmellThis]

Whether Holmes is correct or

not depends on our assumptions.

Because of how unique everything is in the bigger picture, the statistical

probability of any real (whole) event occuring is either zero or one divided by infinity, which means zero is

the limit.

Which is the case depends on whether you assume every event is the combination of known and knowable

aspects of reality only, no matter how unique it is, which yields the latter, since there are infinite combinations

of known and knowable aspects of reality.

In other words, it is either mathematically true that every reality is

either infinitely improbable; or else true by all knowable logic that every event is literally (by human concepts)

impossible until the very moment it occurs, when only that is event is now possible. :)

The latter state

of affairs would be more humorous, go a step beyond Holmes, and be compatible with a certain theory of quantum

physics. It also relies on fewer assumptions, and therefore gets my vote. So I guess I'm inclined to disagree with

the Inspector, and to consider the "impossible" as well as the "possible" -- even before the possible, at times.



Pragmatically speaking; too often the line between "impossible" and "merely unimaginable for me at the moment" is

too blurred in human thinking, is it not?

[belgareth]

For all practical purposes we

can assume some events are so improbable as to be classed as impossible. We have to treat that varying grey area of

what can actually be expected to occur versus what might, in some remote possibility to occur. For the intent of

Holmes' statement we can assume certain events as impossible in our frame of reference. For example a person is

unlikely in the extreme to be in two disparate locations simultaneously. We could safely eliminate that as

impossible in our frame of reality. Under the theory of quantum mechanics it may well be possible. That's a

theoretical problem that has many possible solutions. However, it is theory with little application to the day to da

world we live in.

Yes, the demarcation between impossible and unimaginable at the moment is far too blurred to

even be considered a line. Rather, you should look at it as a cloud of variable possibilities if you want a better

grasp of the universe around us. I didn't say it would be a good grasp, only better than one that deals with black

and white or with dividing lines.

That's an interesting thought about impossible and unimaginable. What was

impossible 50 years ago was merely difficult or hard to imagine 25 years ago and is now commonplace. In the end, do

the terms possible and impossible have any real meaning?

Rather complex for a spin off of some tongue in cheek

remarks made off the cuff on a Sunday, isn't it? :) Making my poor little brain hurt.

[Kenoirorm]

Shopper X wrote:Its

wrong only if its also wrong to sit in front of the TV watching The Biggest Loser while eating ice cream out of the

carton. Which may have happened to me once or twice in the past.

i was just going to post something like this

lol - i am ALWAY watching biggest loser while chowing down on the biggest meal possible. i feel so evil