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Nobel Prize Winners Live Longer
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:11 PM
from the torturing-the-data dept.
from the torturing-the-data dept.
anthemaniac writes "A new study finds those who won Nobel Prizes between 1901 and 1950 lived about 2 years longer than nominees who didn't win. The researchers conclude that the instantly conferred social status leads to health benefits. From the story: 'The research rules out the possibility that intervening prize-related money itself adds the years through improved prosperity.' If you're thinking of aiming for the prize, pick the right field. Nobel laureates in physics lived nearly a year longer than winners in chemistry."
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They live longer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Marie Curie had only herself to blame; winning the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911 obviously cancelled out the beneficial effects of winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903.
Three Words (Score:2, Insightful)
Count again (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Another reason I hate science "reporting" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another reason I hate science "reporting" (Score:5, Informative)
In any event, here is the article: http://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/785.html [repec.org]
The article contains at least one claim to "significance at the 5% level" but as far as I can see it is a working paper, not (yet) published in a refereed venue. The author appears to have other credible publications relating to the effect of windfalls on people.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The standard deviation in the life expectancy of the general population is about 10 years (meaning - 2/3 people die between 67 and 87), although IIRC it's got a lot of skew.
Anyway, the smaller of the two samples is 135 people, so the error in the estimate of that mean is roughly 10 / sqrt(134) ~= 10/12, so two sigma is about 20 months, and the life expectancy difference is 24 months, so it's significant to 5%.
Well, ok
So it's not significant after all? :P (Score:5, Informative)
Well, then you've really made the point as to why the article is bogus, eh? Yes, they make a "nearly two years" claim at the top, but if you read a bit further: "The average lifespan for the nominees (including winners) was 76 years. Winners worldwide lived 1.4 years longer on average, and winners from the same country as non-winning nominees lived another two-thirds of a year, on average."
So lemme see. If you take the whole sample, the difference was 1.4 years, or 1.4 * 12 = 16.8 months. I'm still not done with the morning coffee, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but 16.8 months is a bit lower than the 20 months you've calculated for two sigma.
I find it more interesting when they restrict it to winners from the same country, since, well, only then it's really apples to apples. (You'd expect that someone from the USA would live longer than someone from, say, India. Doubly so when there's data from the early 1900's.) Then it's only 2/3 of a year, or 8 months difference. Quite a bit lower than 20 months, I would say. Plus, it's inherently a lot of smaller samples, so even the 20 months figure would become larger.
More importantly, that difference between "winners vs nominees everywhere" and "winners vs nominees from the same country" tells me that the first one might not be entirely unbiased as samples go. If, say, more winners come from the top industrialized nations with high standards of living, while the larger nominees sample include more people from some poorer countries too, that alone could account for the the 8.8 months difference in the two figures.
I haven't properly studied the names and countries of origin for everyone, but for physics and chemistry it sounds at least like a _believable_ kind of bias: you don't see third world countries building big cyclotrons (for advanced physics research) or having advanced big pharma companies (for advanced chemistry research.) Something like, say, the prize for literature might have been a less biased sample: you don't need lab equipment and funding in the billions to write a book. And if the only cause there is that winning a prize and resulting alpha-monkey status instantly gives you some extra months, then the effect should be the same there too.
This gets funnier when you add this quote into the mix: "Oswald and Rablen found that Nobel laureates in physics lived an average of almost a year longer than laureates in chemistry."
Err... wait a minute. Let's do some maths there, then. Assuming there have been roughly as many winners in physics and chemistry, to keep the average, then the 16.8 months figure becomes something like 22.8 months for physics and 10.8 months for chemistry. It may look like now the physics number is finally signifficant, but it also means half the sample, so sigma is 120 months / sqrt(67) ~= 120 / 8 = 15 months, so two sigma is 30 months. Hmm, now even the figure for physicists is still less significant, and the figure for chemists is outright useless.
Let's apply that piece of wisdom for the "winners vs nominees from the same country", since, again, that's really the only one which doesn't have a built-in bias. To keep the 8 month average and assuming again equal numbers from the same country it becomes 14 months for the physicists and 2 months for the chemists. Frankly, living 2 months longer as a chemistry winner already starts to sound thoroughly insignifficant. But probably that 1 year difference doesn't apply here too, or is proportioanlly reduced too, so let's ignore this.
Was there some other difference between
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
The REAL trick is to win an Oscar, you live 3.6 yrs longer than the nominees that didn't win. Now considering to get to the point you a
Re:Another reason I hate science "reporting" (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Another reason I hate science "reporting" (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So, bad news for Prince Charles then.
Re: (Score:2)
Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, didn't he? Hmmm.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
It's literally killing your self. Therefore, relax and stop thinking about getting a Nobel.
I don't think it worth trying to get one because: not only you'll probably don't get it, but you'll be condemned to die sooner than the #@!%!$ who took it from you!.
samples (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
obviously (Score:5, Funny)
No doubt because they were in better physic-al condition.
Re:obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
oh.... nice (Score:3, Funny)
Chemists poison and burn themselves (Score:2)
A bit of heavy metal here, a bit there, a perchloric acid spill, a falling piece of glassware, a leaky gas jet...
Physics (Score:2)
bad (Score:4, Insightful)
NO.
Mod parent insightful (Score:2)
I'm gonna live forever... (Score:5, Funny)
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Any reference for that? I don't know of any such restriction, because I am very much interested in the debate about why Mahatma Gandhi did not win Nobel prize and have heard of a lot of excuses (I am biased, I call them excuses) - one of them for the year 1948 and how the committee did not want to give it to Gandhi because he was dead and there was no precedent of awarding a Nobel prize posthumously. There was never a mention of Nobel stating that n
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Solution (Score:2)
nominees, huh? (Score:2)
I'll bet Tookie Williams [wikipedia.org] skewed the sample a little bit.
Junk Science about Junk Science (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a better conclusion: People who tend to win also tend to live longer, due to a separate causal factor.
Now gimme my Nobel Prize. I just corrected a bunch of Junk Scientists.
Re: (Score:2)
From: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resea r ch/papers/twerp_785.pdf [warwick.ac.uk] (Emphasis added)
After controlling for other factors -- most significantly the possibility of reverse causation from longevity to winning a Nobel Prize -- the paper's best estimate is that winners live approximately two years longer than do nominees. Tests amongst the winners reveal no relationship between the real value of the Prize and longevity. Status, rather than money, appears to be responsible for our effect.
I'll bet... (Score:2)
so many things wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't immediately blame it on social status. For all we know, it could be because they're being shuttled around the world giving lectures everywhere, such that they get better exercise; it could be that they're being given more money and have a more relaxed personal life to eat better; it could be a lot of other things.
Narrow Sample Set? (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee criminey... It's like using tweezers to pick up sand grains on the far shore of the bell curve to see how sandy they are.
FTFA:
A single car crash could have skewed your margins on that.
Physics vs Chemistry (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bill Sharpe (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it goes with that theory of the brain's "use it or lose it" feature. I bet you live a little longer when you feel you have a reason to get up in the morning and do something. This guy does.
Winners Vs Whiners (Score:2, Funny)
for the next study (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of the nervous air passenger (Score:4, Funny)
Prize winners are usually old (Score:2)
On a side note, Nobel Prize nomination means very little. It only requires a nomination from any of the large number of people allowed to nominate.
This does not show causality, unfortunately (Score:2)
Research in these particular areas are extremely hard; evolution has mixed together bei
Two words about why this research depresses me: (Score:2)
Reduced Stress. (Score:2)
Give the study some credit (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.