[extropy-chat] Fear of Death Much Worse Than You Think

[Robin Hanson]

At 12:11 PM 8/26/2005, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>Some of the data seems to be a bit selective.  For instance, when you
>compare death rates for cities with the best water and sewer systems,
>do you also control for crime rates and other potentially incidentally
>related (save that there are only so many large cities) effects?

Not including all possibly relevant controls is not the same as being
selective with data.

>Still, it would be interesting to see the medical establishment's
>specific criticisms of this.  (Not objection on face value, but the
>specific errors they find - if any - in the data.)

I doubt they would think I merited a response.  By the way, I've heard
that biologists have decided that they should not debate creationists in
public forums, because doing so just gives creationists credibility.
This is a very standard approach, and so it must work on average, but it
still seems less than cricket to me.


Robin Hanson  rhanson at gmu.edu  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
703-993-2326  FAX: 703-993-2323