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That was a Marketplace story[1] that the NYT ran. Marketplace updated their story in 2016 to point to the same study[2] this NYT article points to. The study sa

That was a Marketplace story[1] that the NYT ran. Marketplace updated their story in 2016 to point to the same study[2] this NYT article points to. The study says doctors do die differently than the average American, but not when you account for education and income. [1]: https://www.marketplace.org/2013/11/19/health-care/new-math-health-care/how-doctors-die https://www.marketplace.org/2013/11/19/health-care/new-math-... [2]: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2482317 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2482317

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> The study says doctors do die differently than the average American, but not when you account for education and income. Correct me if my linga sciencia is a little rusty, but doesn't "something does X, but not if you account for [factors]" literally mean "something does not X"?
- mattnewton 10y ago
  No, the important question there is whether or not doctors as a class die differently. If you don't account for education and income, you are just proving that doctors have different education and income than the average American, which is not very interesting.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Exactly. And what I quoted says that if you account for that, then doctors do not die differently.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Except doctors are a rather unique intersection of income and education. What % of people with the equivalent of PHD's make 200+k/year without also being doctors. You could hypothetically say Top Investment Bankers do cocaine at rates similar to people making 10+Million per year, but the sample size of people making 10+ Million a year is tiny and a large chunk of those people are investment bankers. PS: The other issue is showing population A is different from population B becomes harder as you decrease population size. With 1 million people 0.5% can be significant with 5,000 people 0.5% generally looks like noise.
- burkaman 10y ago
  We aren't speaking lingua sciencia, we're speaking more casually to the general audience of our newspaper. In that case, it's completely acceptable to say "doctors don't die like the rest of us", especially when you write that in 2013. It's true, they don't. In 2016, when we know it's not the "doctor" part that matters but the "rich educated" part, it's still true to say "doctors don't die like the rest of us", as long as you make it clear why that's the case. To specifically address your question, I phrased my sentence poorly. It is literally true that doctors don't die like the average American, no matter what you account for, but that's a misleading statement because doctors aren't average.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I see what you meant now, thanks for the clarification.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> The study says doctors do die differently than the average American, but not when you account for education and income. Correct me if my linga sciencia is a little rusty, but doesn't "something does X, but not if you account for [factors]" literally mean "something does not X"?

mattnewton 10y ago
No, the important question there is whether or not doctors as a class die differently. If you don't account for education and income, you are just proving that doctors have different education and income than the average American, which is not very interesting.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Exactly. And what I quoted says that if you account for that, then doctors do not die differently.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Except doctors are a rather unique intersection of income and education. What % of people with the equivalent of PHD's make 200+k/year without also being doctors. You could hypothetically say Top Investment Bankers do cocaine at rates similar to people making 10+Million per year, but the sample size of people making 10+ Million a year is tiny and a large chunk of those people are investment bankers. PS: The other issue is showing population A is different from population B becomes harder as you decrease population size. With 1 million people 0.5% can be significant with 5,000 people 0.5% generally looks like noise.
burkaman 10y ago
We aren't speaking lingua sciencia, we're speaking more casually to the general audience of our newspaper. In that case, it's completely acceptable to say "doctors don't die like the rest of us", especially when you write that in 2013. It's true, they don't. In 2016, when we know it's not the "doctor" part that matters but the "rich educated" part, it's still true to say "doctors don't die like the rest of us", as long as you make it clear why that's the case. To specifically address your question, I phrased my sentence poorly. It is literally true that doctors don't die like the average American, no matter what you account for, but that's a misleading statement because doctors aren't average.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I see what you meant now, thanks for the clarification.