Good point. But even if they died of heart disease, living to 80 is better than most. I guess I should say that neither I nor DocT can use that info in an arguement since we can’t really say what they died from. They DID live long enough to get the diseases, we just can’t tell if they actually got them.
People are spending billions to lose weight today and are fatter than ever, and are getting more cancer, diabetes, and heart disease than ever before. Something isn’t right there. Not to mention how people today are just generally sickly for the most part. Are environmental pollutants to blame? Yes, but not entirely. Pollution has been worse in some cities. I wonder how many deaths they had from CHD when they were severely polluted (like Pittsburgh). For some reason I doubt that it’s higher than it is today, but I could be wrong.
I just find it a bit too convenient that the “healthy” things we should use to replace animal products are all products where big bucks are to be made. And with money comes power to lobby stupid congressmen to decide to pass things, and, well, once it’s passed, who can go against it? And could you imagine the possible legal action if the government admitted it was wrong which resulted in millions of deaths of people who followed the USDA guidelines? They’ll never admit it.
I bet between Neils mullett, molestor mustache, his breath, and his underarm odor, the chicks are beating his door down. It must be that the organic raw eggs of raw chickens increase the pheromones in his body. How can anybody not brush their teeth everyday? How can anybody not put on deodorant everyday? Around here we call that smelling like ass. I heard those crystals you buy from quack health food stores work good on the underarms for preventing smell. check those out.
Mullet? What mullet? It’s the same length all the way around, dude. People seem to find something wrong with me not needing deoderant all the time or needing to brush my teeth every day (that’s not all the time, although raw foods help with this. Nothing like cooked egg burps, eh?).
The crystals don’t help underarm oder, DUH. You use them to get energy, not get rid of odor. Sheesh, who doesn’t know that? I like to rub my crystal before a workout, and after, too. You should try it, Goldberg. Just close your eyes, concentrate, and slowly stroke your crystal. You’ll feel great after you do it. Helps me a lot. Like if I’m stressed out at work, sometimes I go where no one can see me (you know, so they don’t think I’m weird), and I stroke my crystal. It works every time.
It’s funny you mention the girls thing, as I’ve been getting more attention from girls recently lol.
Neil, you keep going on about your randomly selected people. Those people are not randomly selected. The people you chose to use as examples represent the upper crust, the rich and powerful who would of course have had access to the best medical care of the time. Start pulling out the numbers for the homeless and destitute.
I’m also going to barge in and mention that I know a thing or two about statistics and math and I know a couple of profs who would be having seizures due to your attitudes on stats. Now, you cannot simply say that the life expantacy was due to one factor (infant mortality) since there’s no way to prove it one way or the other. Stats is all about the plausible alternative hypothesis. While I’m not disagreeing that the high infant mortality rate did have something to do with it you also have to look at infectious disease, accidents etc etc.
You keep throwing out that the numbers change when you hit 18 so. . . What’s the average lifespan now of someone who’s made it to the age of 18 vs the same 200 years ago?
Like I said, the whole fats thing is not my specialty so I’ll leave it out there for someone else who knows more about it than I do. While I love to debate I’m well aware when I don’t have the prerequisite knowledge to do so in a meaningful manner. . . Plus I’ve learned that arguing with a zealot can be fun but regardless of the truth they’ll never listen, just argue. . .
“Neil, you keep going on about your randomly selected people. Those people are not randomly selected. The people you chose to use as examples represent the upper crust, the rich and powerful who would of course have had access to the best medical care of the time. Start pulling out the numbers for the homeless and destitute.”
Of course. But the rich today have access to a crapload of modern medicine, so why aren’t they living super long? Aren’t the oldest people in the world not rich?
“I’m also going to barge in and mention that I know a thing or two about statistics and math and I know a couple of profs who would be having seizures due to your attitudes on stats. Now, you cannot simply say that the life expantacy was due to one factor (infant mortality) since there’s no way to prove it one way or the other. Stats is all about the plausible alternative hypothesis. While I’m not disagreeing that the high infant mortality rate did have something to do with it you also have to look at infectious disease, accidents etc etc.”
Yes, that’s all true. Modern emergency medicine has improved a lot of things. But emergency medicine is different from giving sound nutritional advice.
“You keep throwing out that the numbers change when you hit 18 so. . . What’s the average lifespan now of someone who’s made it to the age of 18 vs the same 200 years ago?”
I don’t know. I’m trying to find real info on that. But if you take out the much higher infant mortality of 200 years ago, I’m sure no one would disagree that the age would increase significantly.
Of course. But the rich today have access to a crapload of modern medicine, so why aren’t they living super long? Aren’t the oldest people in the world not rich?
Well, there’s still a finite limit on how long people can live. With better medicine we’re just moving a little further toward that limit and more and more people are reaching it. You do have to allow for individual differences of course, even with identical diets etc some people are just genetically programmed to live longer. Look up skewed bell curves and you’ll get a better understanding of what I’m talking about.
I don’t know. I’m trying to find real info on that. But if you take out the much higher infant mortality of 200 years ago, I’m sure no one would disagree that the age would increase significantly.
Uh dude, you just admitted that you’re talking out of your ass. You just stated that you’re arguing based on numbers you don’t have. If everyone agreed as you’re sure they will we wouldn’t be having this argument. You can’t argue based on numbers that “seem right” to you. Heck Communism seemed like a great idea on paper. . .
What do you all think Neil’s life expectancy will be if he maintains his current personality? Can they do personality transplants yet, or should we just let him die? I say it’d be a marvelous addition to the statistics table.
I used to brush all the time, like after every meal. I had great teeth, still do. But I encountered another problem. My teeth were getting increasingly sensitive. When I asked my dentist about this, she told me that it was because I was brushing so much and a little too agrressively, resulting in a wearing away of the gums. Since then, I’ve switched to one of thse fancy ass rotating toothbrushes. Next checkup I’ll se if that worked like she said it would.
On the whole deodorant arguement. I’m in Korea and I always get funny looks when I slap on the pit stick after my shower at the gym. They don’t use it here. And very few people stink. Very few. I don’t understand. Shit if I went without I’d be smelling like a caveman by the end of the day.
“Uh dude, you just admitted that you’re talking out of your ass. You just stated that you’re arguing based on numbers you don’t have. If everyone agreed as you’re sure they will we wouldn’t be having this argument. You can’t argue based on numbers that “seem right” to you. Heck Communism seemed like a great idea on paper. . .”
If the life expectancy doesn’t increase from birth to 18 years of age 200 years ago, then I actually have the ability to talk out of my ass.
People seem to think that people lived to 34.5 years old back then, which isn’t the case.
People seem to think that people lived to 34.5 years old back then, which isn’t the case.
No, people didn’t live to be 34.5 years old (well, actually that would have been the exact age that the greatest number lived too) that’s the average age. If you knew anything about stats we wouldn’t be having this argument. . .
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In ascii graphics land that’s what the curve looked like 200 years ago. . . The people you named were the people at the far right of that graph. Most people fell in that big hump to the left.
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In ascii graphics land that’s what the life expectancy curve looks like now.
As you can see, there always were people who died at birth, and always people who died way way late in life. The thing is that the majority of people used to die much earlier than the majority of people do now. This is simply a statistics thing, while you might be able to argue points with nutrition and training (I’m not getting into that) these are what the numbers, the indisputable facts give us. Most people live longer now than they did 200 years ago, there will always be outlyers at either end of the scale but the MAJORITY of people live longer now. You cannot argue with the truth on this one Neil.
What you are arguing are the causes for that shift in the shape of the curve. While you can hypothesize all you like you will not be able to determine unequivicably the truth since there is no way to conduct such an experiment. There are factors that have been mentioned that influenced this curve (infant mortality, communicable disease, diet/nutrition, environmental factors, health care) but the truth of the curve speaks for itself. Most people are living longer now than they would have 200 years ago.
In 1850, at birth LE is 38.3 years. At 20, it’s 60.1 years. A 21.8 year increase.
In 2000, at birth LE is 74.8 years. At 20 it’s 75.7 years. A 0.9 year increase.
There, it is, folks. Not old enough? Not hardly. Was I optimistic? It appears that way. Although I would like to see the increase from at birth to 20 in 1790. All the emergency medicine today has increased our life span by 15 years over the past 150 years.
So when I said 100 years ago life expectancy wasn’t much less than today, there was a 13.5 year increase. Is it significant? Sure. Is it much less than people think it is? Absolutely.
Stupid. . . freakin’. . . Do you guys know how long it took me to type out those ascii graphics? Do ya? Doh!!!
Okay, hold on. . . I’ve some sort of graphics program here somewhere. . .
Okay, it’s ugly but the first one is the life expectancy curve from 200 years ago. The second one is today’s life expectancy curve. While I will admit that it’s by no means perfect it gives the idea.
