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Am I totally misunderstanding the study? Wouldn't this figures be only people who were scholars appointed on adulthood? That would exclude children.

• adventured 6y ago
  I suppose that hinges on whether the parent was opening a broad point about life expectancy from the topic, or only talking about the adult scholars. I'm not sure which they intended, I was guessing based on their phrasing that they were targeting the broader notion of how it's commonly perceived that life expectancy has increased over that time. Bill Gates for example routinely claims in interviews / discussions that there has been a massive gain in life expectancy (technically correct) and he'll claim that broadly (mostly false), dropping context on the fact that it's heavily caused by childhood mortality figures plunging. I've seen him do that numerous times over the years (usually he gets agitated when someone challenges him, moves into sarcastic mode, and points out the huge gains for the average person on life expectancy, which is partially bunk). It's a common point of intellectual dishonesty in the scientific & health establishment, because they want to pretend the life expectancy gains for adults have been far greater than they really have been (for their own self-interested reasons). I suspected the parent comment was riffing on that aspect, where it's a pushed point of quasi propaganda that life expectancy has soared for everyone.