🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 23:25:57 +0100, "pearl" <tea@signguestbook.ie> wrote:
>"ipse dixit" <f@chance> wrote in message news:7u3t805qqt9dmnh6m4ketj40s3b53c0fp4@4ax.com...
><..>
>> For the record, and to head off any criticism that I'm
>> trying to assist Pearl here,
>
>Heaven forbid!

Good sense forbids, L. My good sense.

>> I've argued in the past that
>> seventh day adventists, because of confounding factors,
>> are a subset of people and so aren't representative of
>> our population generally.
>>
>> [start]
>> Their avoidance of baccy and booze make them confounding
>> factors if the rest of us don't avoid these habits. Also, I might
>> add, these figures are based on a small subset of people and
>> aren't representative of the whole population. Making a judgment
>> based on a hasty generalisation using an unrepresented sample is
>> a logically flawed argument.
>>
>> Unrepresentative Sample
>> AKA:  Biased Sample
>> Type:  Weak Analogy
>> N% of sample S has characteristic C.
>> (Where S is a sample unrepresentative of the population P.)
>>  Therefore, N% of population P has characteristic C.
>>
>> N% of the Seventh Day Adventists has characteristic C.
>> C- live longer on a vegetarian diet.
>> (SDA is a sample unrepresentative of the population P
>> because they don't smoke or drink)
>> Therefore N% of population P has characteristic C.
>>
>> You are trying to claim that N% of our population would
>> live longer following a vegetarian diet similar to the N% of
>> SDA, but you cannot because their confounding factors
>> make them an unrepresentative sample
>> [end] http://tinyurl.com/3ffoc
>
>And I replied; http://tinyurl.com/2kdp9
>
>In short;  SDA studies are also representative of the non-smoking,
>non-drinking meat-eating and vegetarian general population. 

No, they are not because SDA's follow an abstemious
life generally, apart from booze and baccy, and work 
*exceptionally hard*. Apart from that they exercise and 
live clean lives, and these factors make them a subset 
of vegetarians and therefore not representative of them.

[The idea that eating well, exercising and shunning 
cigarettes promotes health is nothing new -- experts 
continually hammer the message home. What is new 
here, is that clean living has been linked to a longer life.

I have great respect for Seventh Day Adventists and 
believe in many of the principles their denomination 
advocates. However, I am not convinced that their 
teaching on vegetarianism is accurate. I certainly can 
be wrong here.

This, and many other studies, clearly show that 
Adventists as a group are far healthier than most 
Americans. There are many other alternative 
explanations for this, besides the elimination of 
animal foods though. Clearly exercise, ideal body 
weight and not smoking or drinking to excess could 
easily account for the increase in life expectancy 
Adventists have.]
http://www.mercola.com/2001/jul/21/vegetarian.htm

See? It's not just the booze and baccy. There are
other confounding factors about them which you're 
ignoring, and these factors make them a sub set and
unrepresentative of other vegetarians.

>They
>are helpful for determining the effects of diet alone, without the
>confounding factors of drinking alcohol and smoking. 

But you're ignoring other the confounding factors 
mentioned above which may also play a huge part
in their health and longevity, such as hard work,
maintaining ideal body weight and clean living.
SDA's are only analogous to others SDA's and 
not to the general vegetarian or vegan.

> Studies of
>the general smoking and non, and drinking and non, populations do
>take those factors into account anyway.  This just makes it easier.

If all vegetarians followed an SDA lifestyle you'd 
have a point, but they don't, so you don't.

>> So let's go back to the evidence you brought instead.
>>
>>      Probably the best science we have was summarized in the
>>      American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1999, in an article
>>      entitled Mortality in Vegetarians and Nonvegetarians. In an
>>      enormous undertaking, twelve researchers took all of the
>>      biggest and best studies to date on vegetarian mortality rates
>>      and pooled all the data together. They took a decade of
>>      mortality data from 28,000 vegetarians from Germany,
>>      California, and Britain. And found... no survival advantage
>>      for vegetarians. What about vegans though? Despite even
>>      having lower cholesterol levels than vegetarians, the vegans
>>      in the study didn't live any longer either. Vegans had the same
>>      mortality rate as meateaters.
>>      http://vegnews.org/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=121
>>
>> Knowing high levels of cholesterol generally shorten life, aren't
>> you a little sceptical of the evidence presented by the American
>> Journal of Clinical Nutrition on this point?
>
>Yes.

So am I.