Slowvehicle
Membership Drive , Co-Ordinator,, Russell's Antin
Not only was this study conducted in Finland; it was conducted in East Finland. 'Nuff said.
We've always been at war with East Finland...
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We've always been at war with East Finland...
CapelDodger
Penultimate Amazing
And there I was blaming it on the drink and the drugs. I must get back to them to apologise.
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
This sounds like a classical null-hypothesis test.
I don't have much experience in that but I can say that if the probability of a person developing dementia is 23/376 then in a sample size of 164, the probability of finding at least 14 people who develop dementia is 13.1%.
I don't have much experience in that but I can say that if the probability of a person developing dementia is 23/376 then in a sample size of 164, the probability of finding at least 14 people who develop dementia is 13.1%.
xtifr
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2012
- Messages
- 1,299
Also sounds a bit like a randomly-stumbled-upon correlation being over-interpreted as causation; possibly drifting into Texas Sharpshooter territory.
The quote from Dr. Tolppanen:
Says it all, really. I mean, there's a correlation (0.947091) between per-capita US consumption of cheese and the number of people who died by getting tangled in their bedsheets between the years 2000 and 2009. I know it's a tired refrain, but correlation is not causation.
That said, I admit that this one, as the good doctor suggests, is probably worth further investigation (unlike the cheese and bedsheets one), but leaping to even as mild a conclusion as "cynicism linked to dementia" is probably premature at this point. (Though that will never stop the press; the Daily Mail is probably trying to figure out how to tie both to cancer at this point.)
The quote from Dr. Tolppanen:
Says it all, really. I mean, there's a correlation (0.947091) between per-capita US consumption of cheese and the number of people who died by getting tangled in their bedsheets between the years 2000 and 2009. I know it's a tired refrain, but correlation is not causation.
That said, I admit that this one, as the good doctor suggests, is probably worth further investigation (unlike the cheese and bedsheets one), but leaping to even as mild a conclusion as "cynicism linked to dementia" is probably premature at this point. (Though that will never stop the press; the Daily Mail is probably trying to figure out how to tie both to cancer at this point.)