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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"Cancer-sniffing dogs"

18 Comments -

1 – 18 of 18
Anonymous Anonymous said...

More likely, Progressives will train dogs to sniff out 'racists'.

11/22/13, 12:19 PM

Anonymous countenance said...

And also notice the contradiction when dealing with two different subject matters.

Sniffing for cancer in humans: Do develop robotic technology, do not train and breed dogs

Picking crops: Do not develop robotic technology, do import millions of new people.

That's the angle I thought you were going to use when I was reading this.

11/22/13, 12:26 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"More likely, Progressives will train dogs to sniff out 'racists'."

Off topic but progressives with racist dogs are the funniest thing ever.

11/22/13, 12:55 PM

Blogger Nicky Haflinger said...

Interesting thing Steve, cows are usually bred for qualities other then increased milk production these days. The tradeoffs of increasing from the near order of magnitude we got over the last century are generally judged not worthwhile so disease resistance and other qualities are now selected for.

11/22/13, 1:02 PM

Anonymous SGOTI said...

Apparently my last Weimaraner was selectively bred to sniff women in the crotch, the old perv.

11/22/13, 1:14 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"More likely, Progressives will train dogs to sniff out 'racists'."

Easier way. See who doesn't come on class trips.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10468353/School-children-as-young-as-8-told-they-would-be-labelled-racist-for-missing-school-trip.html?fb

"Angry mums and dads were sent a letter by Littleton Green Community School, in Huntingdon, Staffordshire, warning their children would be considered racist if they did not go on the school trip."

I can understand kids being penalized for not taking part in class projects but do schools now judge kids/parents as 'racist'?

11/22/13, 1:26 PM

Anonymous NOTA said...

I'd also bet this has to do with what fits into the business models of pharmaceutical and medical device companies. If the cancer-sniffing dog won't be patentable, or it will be hard to get insurance to re-emburse for its use, or it will require a whole new, yet unimagined part of the FDA to regulate, then it may not happen, even if it's possible.

11/22/13, 1:37 PM

Blogger sunbeam said...

A sniffer that is sensitive and give you data you can feed directly into a computer is a very interesting thing to ponder.

Lot of uses I can think of for that.

And given time, and a bit of work, I think it would be interesting to see what other things it could tell us about people. Emotional state, arousal, etc.

Not a smoking gun on its own, but coupled with analysis of microgestures, pupil dilation, voice analysis...

Well I think in the long run it changes a whole lot of things. The sensors are getting there. The rest of it will take a while longer.

But it's coming. "Do it in the name of Profi... I mean Heave.. uh Homeland Security, you can justify it in the end."

11/22/13, 2:30 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dog breeding is still functional in Europe where Shutzhund is practiced.

This is a good idea that you have, Steve.

Thinking about the ability of dogs to sniff cancer, it makes sense if you think about it. Their nose is the most sensitive sensory organ they have, and it is far more sensitive than the human nose. Cancer is very likely an obvious "something is different" smell to dogs. Dogs get cancer just like humans do, so it would be possible that traits to recognize cancer for what it is (i.e. impending death) might be selected for, back in the days before humans had domesticated dogs. Perhaps the cancer smell might trigger early grieving and preparation to move on in life without that family member, e.g. assuming a greater leadership or more independent role (e.g. starting their own pack).

BTW research indicates that wolf packs are really a family structure of breeding pair and offspring rather than a random pairing of wolves with one assuming an "alpha" mantle.

11/22/13, 2:58 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wolf packs are more like marmoset troops than gibbon families. Wolves and marmosets aggregate around a dominant breeding pair and their immature children. Mature children, more loosely related individuals, and unrelated individuals may or may not stick around.

Gibbons, by contrast, have a strict nuclear family which ejects children once they are grown enough to be a rival to the same-sex parent.

11/22/13, 5:44 PM

Anonymous pseudoerasmus said...

Look up the "Sulimov dog", a jackal-dog hybrid owned by Aeroflot. Russians are really good at brilliant but low-tech solutions. Can't imagine why some version of this dog can't be bred to be a proactive cancer-sniffing specialist.

11/22/13, 5:49 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thinking about the ability of dogs to sniff cancer, it makes sense if you think about it. Their nose is the most sensitive sensory organ they have, and it is far more sensitive than the human nose. Cancer is very likely an obvious "something is different" smell to dogs.

Actually, the problem with dogs and their sniffers is that if you didn't wipe your arse well in the morning your oncologist will have you on chemo drip by the afternoon.

11/22/13, 7:34 PM

Anonymous AllanF said...

NOTA wrote what I was going to write.

So I'll add... :)

The other thing going on is when you cross a litigious culture where every fault and circumstance must be exhaustively defined and assigned a responsible party with a technophilic culture where every phenomenon must be scientifically described and rigorously repeatable, you'll be laughed out of the room if you suggest a solution where the solution doesn't have a mathematical formula backing it up.

If you're unsure of this, look at the deference we give economists. These keynesian clowns have been doing the same thing for 5 years (25 if you look at Japan) to absolutely no avail, but their oh so important formulas suggest moar of the same will definitely make a difference, any day now -- and so everyone goes along with the futility.

11/22/13, 8:57 PM

Anonymous TheLRC said...

Just want to note that it's only at iSteve that one can find posts like this -- genuine lateral thinking, putting together concepts no one else would, yielding real insights.

Kudos, Steve.

11/23/13, 2:17 AM

Blogger Dan Kurt said...

This parallel research, hi-tech not dog-tech, is now over 40 years old and continuing in the Private Sector. Visit this web site and learn:

http://www.oism.org

Watch this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnMEG8qe2rw

Send Dr. Robinson some money.

Dan Kurt

11/23/13, 9:16 AM

Anonymous Mr. Anon said...

"I'm sure that livestock breeding continues apace to come up with cows that produce more milk and the like."

Does it? Perhaps farmers nowadays just rely on hormones to increase yield. I don't know. I'm a city-boy myself.

11/23/13, 1:00 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

How terrible to be a dog, smell cancer on your puppies, your humans, and yourself, and to be able to do nothing about it.

11/24/13, 3:10 AM

Anonymous NOTA said...

As a nitpick, it's not that a dog would smell cancer. A dog might be able to smell some consequence of the cancer. If this worked, it would be for specific types of cancer--some kind of tumor causes your level of some hormone to increase, and the dog smells that. Or a dog might smell the consequences of some broad problem (like immunosuppression) caused by the cancer. I'm pretty skeptical that there would be much a dog could get by smelling you that the right blood test wouldn't find, too.

11/24/13, 9:23 AM

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