98 out of 100 Doctors Agree: You Need Chemo. Fast.

Let's say you have some form of virulent cancer.

Let's also say that you are a generous person, the sort who agrees to be an organ donor. So instead of going to a private doctor for your prognosis, you head over to a world-renowned cancer training institute, where young oncologists are being trained. The idea is to help those young minds hone their skills by dealing with yet another real patient.

Let's also say that this school has 100 qualified instructors, each with dozens of years of experience both studying and treating all sorts of different varieties of cancer.

Now that we've set up the scenario, let's walk through your procedures: you're tested, probed, scanned, X-rayed, analyzed, stuck with needles, etc. etc., until every possible diagnostic has been run. The doctors now have reams of data on you: blood cell counts, T-cell numbers, X-ray results, lymphatic system data, MRI images, all the good stuff.

Privately, you meet with the 100 doctor instructors. 98 of them agree on the diagnosis: you have a particularly rare stage 4 cancer which is growing quickly and threatens death within one year if untreated. They point to all the data, show you the scans, show you the numbers, translate all the terminology into language you can understand. Of the 98, none argues with the diagnosis; nor do any argue with the prognosis, which is chemotherapy and radiation treatments which will be debilitating and painful. You are informed that, even with the Chemo, your chances still aren't 100% due to the nature of the cancer. However, your chances are very good, because although this particular cancer is rare, it is well-understood.

The 98 doctors disagree somewhat on your chances of survival, and on some of the basic strategies of the chemotherapy. Some would prefer to see more radiation, for example. Some would like permission to use experimental techniques as part of a promising study. A few of them are also pointing to other lifestyle factors that you might consider changing (perhaps you smoke the occasional cigar, or maybe you like scotch a bit too much for them). There is no disagreement on the diagnosis, however: you definitely have this particular cancer, they tell you, and you definitely would benefit from the suggested therapies, regardless of the specifics.

The two other doctors, however, see things differently. One questions the methodology of some of the testing, claiming that only through further diagnostics, and only by looking at things over a longer period of time, can he be sure that the diagnosis is accurate. To this doctor, of course, if the diagnosis is wrong, the prognosis is misguided as well, so he recommends that you go through exactly the same battery of tests again. He would also like you to come back in 6 months and again in one year, without any treatment of any sort in the meantime, repeating all those tests twice. Then, and only then, would he be willing even to speculate on your condition.

The other doctor claims that this type of cancer can actually be helpful and healthy, arguing that it is perfectly natural, and pointing to your present state of health as evidence that you have nothing to worry about. This doctor doesn't see a need to look at the data beyond using it to bolster his argument that because it has happened before and that others have survived it previously leads him to think that you will survive it as well. He ignores the fact that previous survivors underwent chemotherapy and radiation to treat it. He also ignores the fact that this cancer has killed other victims, too, in spite of being treated similarly. It's a bit random and out of our hands, he explains.

What would you think of the two remaining doctors? What would you decide to do? Would you decide to go with the 98, if for no other reason than because those other two doctors just don't make any logical sense? Is this a situation where the majority opinion would hold sway merely because it was the majority, or would you also be looking at 8 dozen highly trained oncologists who agree 100% on the diagnosis but have a few differences of opinion as to the prognosis?

If you feel inclined to listen to the 98, you have the type of mind which would believe in anthropogenic global warming and feel inclined to take some steps at least to slow the process down. You might also support policies whose aim is to mitigate our use of fossil fuels, install scrubbers on coal-fired power plants, require packagers to be mindful of excess packaging materials, and so forth.

If you feel inclined to trust either or both of the other two doctors, you have the type of mind which would probably be a climate change denier. You would look with suspicion on scientific data, always having the idea in the back of your head that it is somehow a hoax, scam, fraud, or other such dastardly plot. You would look on images of the Arctic sea ice over the last 30 years and conclude that nothing is changing, or that if it is, it is a perfectly natural cycle that we couldn't change if we wanted to. You would believe that tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different fields, all over the world, were taking part in some sort of coordinated conspiracy to defraud wealthy nations of their largesse in a final grab at world domination. Every "independent" review of any data sets would be highly suspect in your mind, especially if the review concluded that the data was accurate.

In short, if you feel inclined to trust either of the two remaining doctors, you are an idiot.