Given that even the credit crunch has failed to prevent the ordinary folk from having to pay taxes, it's nice to know that not everything is set in stone. According to the BBC, taking a more positive view of life can actually help you to cheat death! The key to eternal happiness has been found!
This discovery was announced the other morning on the BBC News pages as follows:
Quite a claim! While pessimists are busy shuffling off the mortal coil, the probability of the cheerier souls following suit is considerably less. Presumably some of them cheat it entirely, judging by that headline.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the text subsequently changed to the somewhat more prosaic "Why optimism may be key to a long, healthy life - at least for women". Shame the editor didn't follow through and change the article itself. It still starts as follows:
What they actually mean is that over the years in which the study was conducted, the death rate among optimists was lower than that among the pessimists. This is not the same as having a lower risk of death. Let's be clear about this - the risk of death for every person on the planet is 100%. 10 out of 10. As certain as taxes. Is the Pope a Catholic? Yes. Are you going to die? Yes.
That's not to dismiss the research itself - one's state of mind can have a profound influence on one's health and longevity. Whether life is 'nasty, brutish and short' or otherwise, one might as well find a way of enjoying it, and a sunny disposition may well aid you in receiving a telegram from the Queen. But is it too much to ask that people charged with writing science stories actually proof-read what they've written, and check for logic? No, I suppose not, or else we might have been spared this effort today:
Isn't 'downing a drink' a tad colloquial for a 'quality' news site? Are we dumbing down English as well as science? Mind you, it looks like the proof reader had had a couple.
Sigh.
[In case you are worried I'm plotting to usurp Dr Goldacre from his post as Chief Health Story Inaccuracy Pointer-Outer, I won't. He does it with far more skill than I, and I haven't got the time. But I reserve the right to carry on shouting at the telly when they say stupid things about health. And I may well subject you to a rant about swine flu coverage at some point. Sorry.]
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Overcoming certainty
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4 comments:
But, but, but...
doesn't claiming a rule based on past observation fall foul of the inductive fallacy?
Just because the sun has risen every morning so far doesn't mean it will continue to do so...
Just because everyone has died so far doesn't necessarily imply that everyone will.
Cheers
Presumably that means the study authors could adopt the BBC's interpretation and market their research under the banner:
"Cheer up - might never happen".
Yup, that's my motto. ;-)
You write: "What they actually mean is that over the years in which the study was conducted, the death rate among optimists was lower than that among the pessimists. ... Let's be clear about this - the risk of death for every person on the planet is 100%."
I don't see a problem in that measure. I've also used it in my own research. Mortality is an extreme health outcome, but although extreame, it is a measure of health. Sometimes it is the only measure available. Did they use cause specific mortality in the study? It would be interesting to see if "optimists" have lower suicide rates. In any case, if optimists have a lower probability of death in a 10-year follow-up study, then that be taken as evidence for a positive effect of 'mood' on health. But if the researchers have messed up and not properly controlled for factors that simultaneously determine the probability of being optimist _and_ the risk of dying, then the effect is not causal.
I wonder what the measure of optimism was? Self-reported?
But surely interesting.
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