Pascal's Wager

For some reason I've always been attracted to the mathematical luminaries of our civilization. Blaise Pascal is one such dude. This cat lived in the 1600's and developed theorems that underlie many of todays statistical equations (used in stock markets, quantum theory and everything in between). How cool is that?

Pascal is known for many things, but one that has always fascinated me was his work on "uncertainty". One example of this is known as Pascal's Wager. In brief (and greatly over-simplified), he argues that it's better to believe in God and be wrong, than to not believe in God and be wrong.

Over this past week I've encountered a number of men who don't think they need to worry about their PSA value until later in life (50 is the most common age that this test is first started at). Borrowing from Pascal's Wager, here's a truth table for PSA testing and its possible outcomes:

	Get PSA tested	No testing
You have cancer	It's caught early, you live and enjoy a full normal life	You die
You don't have cancer	No harm, no foul	No harm, no foul

You will notice that age is not included in this table. I do not include it because it has no relevance to the outcome. Neither does race, history or anything else. The issue is quite simple: you have cancer or you don't. Cancer doesn't care how old you are, it doesn't care what color your skin is and it doesn't care who you vote for.

Know your PSA value.