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Not at all. The most likely explanation to me is the causality is reversed. Poor health or limited social life causes both abstinence and mortality. Nothing in

Not at all. The most likely explanation to me is the causality is reversed. Poor health or limited social life causes both abstinence and mortality. Nothing in the abstract suggests they did any analysis to determine causality which makes their statement at the end "showing that survival varies as a function of one’s own and one’s partner’s drinking" misleading, as it could easily be interpreted to imply causality. Of course they phrased it that way on purpose because implying causality makes their results sound way more important than they are.

misja111 3y ago
> Poor health or limited social life causes both abstinence and mortality. Your theory doesn't explain the observed positive correlation to lifespan when partners shared the same drinking habit.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  A compatible partner is part of "good social life".
- codingdave 3y ago
  It might - if both partners feel good enough to go out and have a drink together, they are probably healthy. Or at least healthier than those who don't feel good enough to do so.
mapreduce 3y ago
> Of course they phrased it that way on purpose because implying causality makes their results sound way more important than they are. How do you know that? I am at a loss to understand how someone on HN can read one sentence and begin drawing conclusions about what other ulterior motives they had while writing the sentence? Maybe that sentence means exactly what it says and nothing more which is Z is a function of X and Y? Why perform psychoanalysis on that sentence? And if you have to perform psychoanalysis of that sentence, at least substantiate your conclusion by telling us what process you followed to rule out about a 100 other possible ulterior motives and conclude that "makes their results sound way more important than they are" is most definitely the ulterior motive they had?

misja111 3y ago

> Poor health or limited social life causes both abstinence and mortality. Your theory doesn't explain the observed positive correlation to lifespan when partners shared the same drinking habit.

HPsquared 3y ago
A compatible partner is part of "good social life".
codingdave 3y ago
It might - if both partners feel good enough to go out and have a drink together, they are probably healthy. Or at least healthier than those who don't feel good enough to do so.

mapreduce 3y ago

> Of course they phrased it that way on purpose because implying causality makes their results sound way more important than they are. How do you know that? I am at a loss to understand how someone on HN can read one sentence and begin drawing conclusions about what other ulterior motives they had while writing the sentence? Maybe that sentence means exactly what it says and nothing more which is Z is a function of X and Y? Why perform psychoanalysis on that sentence? And if you have to perform psychoanalysis of that sentence, at least substantiate your conclusion by telling us what process you followed to rule out about a 100 other possible ulterior motives and conclude that "makes their results sound way more important than they are" is most definitely the ulterior motive they had?