When there were wars and famines, then the death rate spiked up.

America is not perfect, but we are way ahead of places like Russia……where men started dying in their 40’s and 50’s after 1989– I think in large part due to rotgut vodka.

America’s problems are utterly trivial by historical standards. People are actually supposed to die when they get old, We do want to minimize pain and we do a decent job of that.

HI, Rob, that one is in our book. The shocking statistic — from the CDC itself — is that 7 out of 10 people die of chronic disease. Perhaps they would like it better if 7 out of 10 people died of acute diseases, medical errors, homicides etc.

Glad you brought this up…

If they know so little about surveying that they could sample that disportionately, you’re right- -their average could be right…but then they would be showing they know less than nothing about sampling. Or at the worst they could have at least mentioned that they didn’t survey anything remotely approaching a representative sample.

Still, it’s hard to imagine how they could have surveyed only people who were average or higher than average.

Scare tactics are the heart and soul of the modern wellness and healthcare industries. Whether it’s decrying the number of deaths from heart disease, cancer, or Alzheimer’s, the best way to get people to engage with the healthcare system is to frighten them, even if it’s only restless leg syndrome.

Facts, such as stressors can be good or bad, and that two people can both see a situation as stressful and have strikingly different responses to it, don’t matter. It’s all about the games you can play with the data, with definitions of terms, and nondisclosure of useful information, to scare people into playing your game.

Keep reminding folks about this, as distortion of the obvious as remarkable is usually done by folks trying to gain from people’s credulity and unwillingness to see beyond the screaming headlines/advertisements. Thanks for this!

But, your argument that is more flawed is on the 72% of women and 28% of men. Again, this is within the survey data. Thus, if 500 women responded and 100 men – that woudl be 360 women and 28 men, equaling 65% of the survey respondents. On the flip side, if it were 500 men and 100 women, that would be 42% (close to the 40% total). You can’t just add percentages and average without knowing the base upon which the percentage was applied. Your assumption is that there was an equal number of men and women who responded to the survey. Don’t know if that is a valid assumption or not.

Why point this out? To show that you are guilty of logical fallacies just as Keas is. And you’re guilty of manipulating statistics to prove your point.