5 ms·

It’s the right thing to use in this specific context not because it is explaining the full picture better than the average, but because it distorts the picture

by _yb2s 2y ago

It’s the right thing to use in this specific context not because it is explaining the full picture better than the average, but because it distorts the picture in a different way: the modal age being high is incompatible with the incorrect assumption people are making when seeing a low average life span- that people in ancient times basically never made it to an old age in their 70s or older. People then jump from that to the idea that people were dying of old age much younger, which isn’t accurate… they were mostly dying of things unrelated to aging, and few were making it to old age- but healthy active people in their 80s and older did exist even in ancient times, and are mostly more common now because our lives are safer. Deeper than that, I think there is a modern tendency to want to believe false claims about how awful life was in the past, and how much better we have it now… so there are a large number of such myths that are nearly ubiquitous but not accurate. Not to say that many aren’t also accurate, just that the inaccurate ones go largely unquestioned. Modern times are very different from most of human history- better in many ways and worse in many others. If we romanticize how perfect the present is, we then lose the ability to make things still better.

llm_trw 2y ago
>because it distorts the picture in a different way: the modal age being high is incompatible with the incorrect assumption people are making when seeing a low average life span- that people in ancient times basically never made it to an old age in their 70s or older. I literally proved by demonstration why having a distribution with an absolute mode in the extreme most value means that 97% of people still died younger than that. There is nothing wrong with the assumption that basically no one made it to 70 because less than 0.5% of people actually did for any period where we have records. >Deeper than that, I think there is a modern tendency to want to believe false claims about how awful life was in the past, and how much better we have it now… so there are a large number of such myths that are nearly ubiquitous but not accurate. Not to say that many aren’t also accurate, just that the inaccurate ones go largely unquestioned. Again, you're wronger than the people who hold that view. I'm not sure what you're arguing against at this point other than sophistry.
- authorfly 2y ago
  The paper he linked though isn't a distribution where the age 72 is a special modal number. The paper suggests 68-78 is the adaptive lifespan for some small communities.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  Neither of us are wrong per se- we are saying different things that are fully compatible with one another, but are both incomplete. However, I am using a biased model on purpose while aware of its limitations, and you seem to be confusing yours with reality, which is why mine seems “wrong” to you- because my model is specifically being used to show where yours does not fit reality. Looking at mode alone is pretty useless other than to make this one point, I think it is important to emphasize that I do not think it is somehow better than the improper use of averages I was criticizing, or that it should be generally used in the same way averages generally are. What I am saying is important to me because I’m interested specifically in what health and life were like for those few people that made it to old age in ancient times - to see how it might provide ideas to improve our health today. For example, I have found that I need a huge amount of exercise and natural light or else I feel fatigued and depressed… I felt I “should not” need this, until I realized not getting this is some sort of anomaly in human history- and there is no reason to expect everyone to be able to handle low levels of light and activity. Reading about “evolutionary medicine” theorizing was so fascinating it led me to get my doctorate and become an academic PI, although my research is not really in that area these days, I still find it interesting and useful as a hypothesis generator and not "anti science" as another person on here accused me of.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    I wanted to add- in general if you make a simple calculation or model of some real phenomena, such as taking the mean, median, or mode of a real set of data- and the conclusions you then draw from each are fundamentally incompatible, then you made a mistake somewhere in drawing those conclusions. The replies to my original comment are basically mostly people making this same category of mistake and arguing which is "correct" - the average or the mode of the same distribution. Unfortunately, I chose a really bad example where people already hold strong almost religious or political opinions, rather than something generic that just illustrates the math.

by _yb2s 2y ago

llm_trw 2y ago

>because it distorts the picture in a different way: the modal age being high is incompatible with the incorrect assumption people are making when seeing a low average life span- that people in ancient times basically never made it to an old age in their 70s or older. I literally proved by demonstration why having a distribution with an absolute mode in the extreme most value means that 97% of people still died younger than that. There is nothing wrong with the assumption that basically no one made it to 70 because less than 0.5% of people actually did for any period where we have records. >Deeper than that, I think there is a modern tendency to want to believe false claims about how awful life was in the past, and how much better we have it now… so there are a large number of such myths that are nearly ubiquitous but not accurate. Not to say that many aren’t also accurate, just that the inaccurate ones go largely unquestioned. Again, you're wronger than the people who hold that view. I'm not sure what you're arguing against at this point other than sophistry.

authorfly 2y ago
The paper he linked though isn't a distribution where the age 72 is a special modal number. The paper suggests 68-78 is the adaptive lifespan for some small communities.
_yb2s 2y ago
Neither of us are wrong per se- we are saying different things that are fully compatible with one another, but are both incomplete. However, I am using a biased model on purpose while aware of its limitations, and you seem to be confusing yours with reality, which is why mine seems “wrong” to you- because my model is specifically being used to show where yours does not fit reality. Looking at mode alone is pretty useless other than to make this one point, I think it is important to emphasize that I do not think it is somehow better than the improper use of averages I was criticizing, or that it should be generally used in the same way averages generally are. What I am saying is important to me because I’m interested specifically in what health and life were like for those few people that made it to old age in ancient times - to see how it might provide ideas to improve our health today. For example, I have found that I need a huge amount of exercise and natural light or else I feel fatigued and depressed… I felt I “should not” need this, until I realized not getting this is some sort of anomaly in human history- and there is no reason to expect everyone to be able to handle low levels of light and activity. Reading about “evolutionary medicine” theorizing was so fascinating it led me to get my doctorate and become an academic PI, although my research is not really in that area these days, I still find it interesting and useful as a hypothesis generator and not "anti science" as another person on here accused me of.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  I wanted to add- in general if you make a simple calculation or model of some real phenomena, such as taking the mean, median, or mode of a real set of data- and the conclusions you then draw from each are fundamentally incompatible, then you made a mistake somewhere in drawing those conclusions. The replies to my original comment are basically mostly people making this same category of mistake and arguing which is "correct" - the average or the mode of the same distribution. Unfortunately, I chose a really bad example where people already hold strong almost religious or political opinions, rather than something generic that just illustrates the math.