A really really really really simple example for the dogmatic and reason-challenged out there:
If you take five individuals, and four of them live to be 60, and the fourth dies at childbirth, the "average" longevity of the group is 48 years. A 20% reduction in the lifespan of all the survivors. Statistically useful but not particularly informative.
We won't even get into why or how, of the ducumented 10 people who lived to over 105, 9 of them smoked until age 95.
There must be other factors involved. YA THINK?
The reality that you have thrown out is that any study that would use an age average would automatically toss out and explain any age that would seem to fall out of the group norm, or in fact the study would not even use that data and would create a seperate study to determine why there was this anomaly in the study. Using an EXTREME example of a non realistic average is not scientific at all.
Probably not. The anthropologists theorize the age by going by found skeletons and their average age. I doubt any of those "smokin" cavemen lived beyond their thirties... partly due to their smokin' caves!
Given all the givens, evidently the scientific study backing up this "Most" will be posted shortly on this thread.
A really really really really simple example for the dogmatic and reason-challenged out there:
If you take five individuals, and four of them live to be 60, and the fourth dies at childbirth, the "average" longevity of the group is 48 years. A 20% reduction in the lifespan of all the survivors. Statistically useful but not particularly informative.
We won't even get into why or how, of the ducumented 10 people who lived to over 105, 9 of them smoked until age 95.
I am beginning to think that smokers are as addicted to non-secuiters as much as they are to cigarettes!
Amazing.