Ask HN: Why did you vote on "Cancer not a disease of modern world"?

[fnl]

Apart from programmer I am also a scientist on cancer; when I saw this subject I (in full: "Briefing: Cancer is not a disease of the modern world") had to read the corresponding link, especially as it was voted to the top (2nd place) of HN. Although it is already explained in the article why the title's statement is wrong (read the statistics), it gained the 2nd place in HN. Why, dear HN co-followers, did you vote this utterly unscientific, not rational, misleading, and clearly wrong statement to the top of HN? (Because cancer IS a disease of the modern world; We grow about double as old as a few hundred years ago, and the number of mummies we have collected so far are definitely not enough in the exceptional assumption the title of the post does). So, everybody who voted this article up: why did you do so? Furthermore, this "mummy & cancer" issue is even known [to me, at least] to be an old hoax brought up already several times (and there you will simply have to trust me, as I will not even start to waste my time by trying to bring up references for that).

[Zev]

FWIW, I've upvoted a story or two in the past, simply because I hoped that other people would comment on it and I was genuinely curious as to what the community thought about the story/post. It could very well be the same case here.

And please do keep in mind that an upvote on HN doesn't necessarily mean that the person behind the vote agreed with the story (let alone the title).

[fnl]

Thank you, Zev, that makes me far less preoccupied (honestly)! My voting strategy is simply on what I think is important (from my individual standpoint, naturally), to know - hopefully, for others, too. However, you take of "testing the quality" of a story as a voting strategy seems actually quite genuinely interesting.

[ggchappell]

You're certainly not alone here. In a couple of cases in the not-too-distant past, I've upvoted HN posts that I thought were on the crappy side, but I was very interested to see the discussion in the HN comments. I don't do this too often, but now & then it seems like a worthwhile thing to do.

[hetman]

The title was obviously just an attention grabber implying a little about the content, it was the title of the original article after all.

I upvoted because the article weighed in a little on the debate initiated by the other article recently posted. Both made some sloppy claims but also enough interesting points to warrant attention in my opinion.

Edit: I shouls also note most of the readers of HN aren't cancer researchers. They may not spend as much time thinking about this as you, which is why I think instead of this thread, your contribution in the comments would have been more valuable.

[evgen]

There are several reasons that others have pointed out as justifications, I will simply note that the "weekend HN" is a different beast than the Monday-Friday HN. The weekend HN gets lots of political BS and lower-quality stories popped onto the front-page by smaller group of people who up-vote similar stories.

[sorbus]

Because the article is interesting, even if the title is misleading. We vote on the content of articles, not just the titles, as you seem to believe (note that you ask "why ... did you vote this ... statement to the top of HN").

[fnl]

Well, I think the content is misleading, too. Sorry if that was not clear.

[cperciva]

cancer IS a disease of the modern world

That depends on how you define "world". As used in the headline, the distinction is drawn between the modern world and the modern people who live within it. In that context, the headline is entirely correct.

[fnl]

The world is the place we live in populated by the people we live with. If you want to say that cancer would have occurred equally had people lived longer in the ancient times although, then you are right. However, that would be not a novel insight at all. The point that would be interesting to announce is that cancer only occurs in the modern world and has not happened before, despite lifespans.

[petercooper]

I didn't vote it up. But FWIW, I open a lot of HN links in tabs and read them throughout the day so I usually just vote up ones I'm pretty confident will be interesting from the title alone. This example had a catchy title for sure and perhaps a lot of people were caught by it.