> This same argument could be used to show that we can't decide e.g. which drugs or lifestyle choices make death due to cancer more or less likely, or indeed which behaviors make death due to any long-term illness more or less likely.
I won't hazard a guess as to which argument you're imagining I made, but I'm not seeing how you jumped to this conclusion at all. As Dylan16807 points out below, "deciding which drugs or lifestyle choices make death due to longterm illness more likely" has approximately nothing to do with an apples to oranges comparison of time intervals starting at different points.
In fact, to the extent that attempts to figure this out do involve comparing intervals, they tend to be ages, which by definition are measured from birth. That's pretty much the highest standard for having a reasonable, stable beginning point when comparing time intervals across people's lives, in a way that "years after diagnosis" doesn't approach by a long shot.
> Congratulations I guess, but you've just put a bunch of medical researchers out of a job. They had to study a long time to do that job!
I'm assuming the juvenile tone is an attempt to cover up your lack of comprehension with bluster. "Congratulations I guess"
I won't hazard a guess as to which argument you're imagining I made, but I'm not seeing how you jumped to this conclusion at all. As Dylan16807 points out below, "deciding which drugs or lifestyle choices make death due to longterm illness more likely" has approximately nothing to do with an apples to oranges comparison of time intervals starting at different points.
In fact, to the extent that attempts to figure this out do involve comparing intervals, they tend to be ages, which by definition are measured from birth. That's pretty much the highest standard for having a reasonable, stable beginning point when comparing time intervals across people's lives, in a way that "years after diagnosis" doesn't approach by a long shot.
> Congratulations I guess, but you've just put a bunch of medical researchers out of a job. They had to study a long time to do that job!
I'm assuming the juvenile tone is an attempt to cover up your lack of comprehension with bluster. "Congratulations I guess"