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kirby urner

Posts: 3,690
Registered: 11/29/05

Re: The crankery of peer-reviewed science denial (was "Re: Mathematical science
Posted: Mar 27, 2011 7:26 PM

Plain Text

On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Robert Hansen <bob@rsccore.com> wrote:
> Paul, I said that the US was within a year or two with the other countries, except for the the top countries like Japan. Considering the diversity of the US and the current epidemic of obesity, a difference of a couple percent in life expectancy cannot be accounted for by "amenable" mortality because if the US's (amenable mortality) is so poor then why are the other countries life expectancies not much better than ours. In other words, if we are missing so many opportunities to save lives, which would directly affect our life expectancy, then these other countries are as well. This is all I asked you to explain. Save me the peer reviews and links and nausea. Just tell us how saving more lives from a premature death does not alter the life expectancy significantly? This is what makes no sense in what you posted. If amenable mortality is even a valid measure it would appear that all the countries are having a problem with it, cept maybe Japan, though it appears obvious that their situation is probably genetic.
>

The breakdown of life expectancy by citizenship in some nation state
is one way to go.

I tend to prefer studies that go more by zip code, if geography is the
focus. Something more granular. Aggregate if you must, but do so in
sensible units.

Age bracket, lifestyle in general, are major determinants, naturally,
whereas citizenship has yet to be proved statistically significant in
any of these arguments, once you factor out social class and genetic
factors not germane to the citizenship concept.

Per our meeting of the Ben Franklin Thinking Society in Philadelphia
recently, the commitment to break it down "by nation" is only getting
a lukewarm response from today's students, as they're eager to be
counted among whatever local population they happen to find themselves
in, and exchanges tend to be frequent, though less so in North
America, where xenophobia is somewhat severe. A student based in the
University of Havana is going to want to be surveyed even if living on
scholarship in Berlin, when ranking the twelve hottest movies of 2011
or whatever.

There's also the conundrum of health plans offering elective
procedures on lists of approved facilities outside the US. Your
policy might cost you a lot less, but you have to be willing to
travel. So where do we count the death and/or the life? Say you have
a US passport but got the majority of your cardiac care in South
Africa, per agreement with insurance. Does your longevity reflect
well on the standard of living in the US? Why should it? All your
doctors were in Cape Town.

India has a huge middle class developing the same cardiac conditions
as many Australians, based on over-consumption of meat products and
lack of exercise. Too much TV turns children to jello, both mentally
and physically, in wherever adults have been subverted (parents and
guardians divorced from their children by "the market place" -- the
hallmark of many a mindless consumerdom).

You probably see where I'm going with this. Judging mathematical
competence by individual state, say Florida versus Oregon, might make
some sense. But more likely it doesn't. Our nano-tech and Silicon
Forest enterprises recruit from around the world, including from
Florida, and unless very stringent criteria are applied, there's
simply no way to assure that the resulting scores have anything to do
with "native Oregonians" versus transplants of some variety.

My sense with a lot of these threads is they're nothing more than
vehicles for the expression of parochialism mixed with nationalism, a
quaint ideology being left by the wayside by corporate media, though
still exploited by same (ala Rambo). Here's my favorite Youtube on
that topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIo0wRyj8RU

You'd think mathematically literate people would be less entranced
(taken in) by such statistical legerdemain, but then "us versus them"
partisanship has never been in short supply among the mathematically
oriented (nationalism has a long history in this discipline). We're
talking about hominids with axes to grind, lots of stone age reflexes,
not advanced more other-worldly ETs.

Kirby