Prediction markets, like all markets, are extremely useful in those places where they have taken root. In a manner of speaking, all markets perform the function of a prediction market: they measure the ever-changing opinions of the participants on a range of topics. Prediction markets in the present definition are slanted to the generation of specific, clear, useful - and therefore valuable - information.

James Miller suggests prediction markets for the reliability of presently available medical and health techniques wherein the science is still uncertain; distillation of confidence for any given outcome is a classic type of prediction market.

The chemical resveratrol might slowdown aging. Taking large doses of vitamin D supplements might drastically reduce your chances of contracting cancer. It's possible, however, that taking either supplement could worsen your health.

Some would argue that the prudent thing to do is wait for more research to be published. But, for example, if resveratrol really does slowdown aging then if I wait five years to take it I might lose two years of life. Similarly, if taking large quantities of vitamin D really does drastically cut the risk of cancer then waiting five years to start taking it in supplement form might cost me my life.

In ten years we will know far more about the health effects of taking these and many other supplements. What should we do in the meantime? What most of us are forced to do is rely on the advice of experts as presented in the popular press. Instead someone should create prediction markets in the benefits and costs of health supplements.

If resveratrol fulfills its promise then in ten years tens of millions of Americans will be taking it. We could therefore create a prediction market that predicts how many Americans will be taking resveratrol in ten years.

I'm in the prudent waiting camp, personally, but that's just my choice, and one I am fortunate enough to have the time to take.

I wouldn't be tracking opinions of the penny-ante medical technologies mentioned above were I participating in a prediction market on medical science. I'm more interested in using such a market to more accurately determine the change in awareness and support over time for ambitious research such as the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence. Why endlessly analyze the hypothetical performance of supplement A versus supplement B when neither is going to do much for you in the grand scheme of things, and when there are plausible paths forward to add decades to healthy life over the next few decades of research? Supplements and the possibility of a year here or a year there are not the future; overexamination of supplements is a good way to mire yourself in the past while missing the opportunities to help build the longevity medicine of tomorrow.

Technorati tags: life extension, prediction markets

Posted by Reason at June 8, 2007 11:37 PM | TrackBack (0)