Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages PL
We can all find anecdotes or testimonials to prove whatever we want to prove. For example, my grandfather lived to age 97 and his lifestyle was a mixture of good and bad. Was it a case of the good things overcoming the bad? He worked hard but was not at all religious. I don't think he ate a lot of processed foods or red meat but he had a really big waistline at middle age. He had just one son who made it into his 70s (died of cancer) and 4 daughters who all had cancer. Yet both my grandfather and grandmother never had cancer. If they had anti-cancer genes, what happened to them?
Here's a good one: Do you remember Jeanne Calment the woman who lived to the age of 122? Her father lived to 94 and her mother lived to 86. That's pretty good but was no indication that she would live to 122. If she had special genes, where did they come from? She had one daughter who died at age 36. What does this anecdote prove, if anything?
If we all sit around hoping that our genes will pull us through, we may be sadly mistaken. Over 73,000 Adventists were in the study, with basically the same genes as the rest of us, and yet their average life expectancy is 88 while ours is only 78.
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I realize that finding snarkyness, which exists in the eye of the beholder, is easier than dealing with scientific facts. But back to the topic at hand: Does anyone have any comment about the above statement in bold print?
Here it is again with slightly different wording:
Over 73,000 Adventists were in the study, with basically the same gene pool as the rest of us Americans, and yet their average life expectancy is 88 while our life expectancy is only 78.