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Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

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Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#11

Post by Produce »

pessimizer wrote: post #5

Step 1: Flurry of fearmongering articles that appeal to the prejudices of the target audience with logical hole large enough to drive a freight train through (usually correlation=causation/post-hoc reasoning or statistical silliness.) Step 2: sell tons of papers, products, and ads to the credulous. Step 3: point out logical flaw. Step 4: sell tons of papers and ads to the incredulous. Step 5: profiles of the people w…

Step 1: throw all your newspapers in the bin, cancel your subscriptions and point all of the major news sites' URL's to 127.0.0.1.

Step 2: start reading scientific journals and other high quality sources of information.

Step 3: call all of your friends idiots for not doing the same.

Step 4: begin to hate your life more and more because you can't identify with the appaling ignorance that surrounds you.

Pessimistic step 5: throw yourself off of a tall building.

Optimistic step 5: build a rocket ship and fly to the moon.

Final disposition: you are no longer a part of society at large.

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#13

Post by flatline »

Produce wrote: post #11
pessimizer wrote: post #5

Step 1: Flurry of fearmongering articles that appeal to the prejudices of the target audience with logical hole large enough to drive a freight train through (usually correlation=causation/post-hoc reasoning or statistical silliness.) Step 2: sell tons of papers, products, and ads to the credulous. Step 3: point out logical flaw. Step 4: sell tons of papers and ads to the incredulous. Step 5: profiles of the people w…

Step 1: throw all your newspapers in the bin, cancel your subscriptions and point all of the major news sites' URL's to 127.0.0.1. Step 2: start reading scientific journals and other high quality sources of information. Step 3: call all of your friends idiots for not doing the same. Step 4: begin to hate your life more and more because you can't identify with the appaling ignorance that surrounds you. Pessimistic ste…

Step 6: Realize that, however well-informed you may be in some narrow field, we are all woefully ignorant of so many other things that said knowledge is, in a broader scope, quite trivial, and that separating from society at large is just another symptom of said ignorance;)

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#14

Post by BCM43 »

Produce wrote: post #11
pessimizer wrote: post #5

Step 1: Flurry of fearmongering articles that appeal to the prejudices of the target audience with logical hole large enough to drive a freight train through (usually correlation=causation/post-hoc reasoning or statistical silliness.) Step 2: sell tons of papers, products, and ads to the credulous. Step 3: point out logical flaw. Step 4: sell tons of papers and ads to the incredulous. Step 5: profiles of the people w…

Step 1: throw all your newspapers in the bin, cancel your subscriptions and point all of the major news sites' URL's to 127.0.0.1. Step 2: start reading scientific journals and other high quality sources of information. Step 3: call all of your friends idiots for not doing the same. Step 4: begin to hate your life more and more because you can't identify with the appaling ignorance that surrounds you. Pessimistic ste…

Tried this, don't have enough time to get past step 2.

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#15

Post by graeme »

Alex3917 wrote: post #8

These studies on sitting on completely overblown. One of the most consistent findings that holds true across all cultures is that the more years of schooling people have, the longer they live. If sitting was really all bad for you, this wouldn't be the case since not only is schooling a highly sedentary activity, but people with more schooling are also much more likely to have sedentary jobs.

You're ignoring the possibility that sitting is bad, but the negative impact is outweighed by the other advantages accompanied by education.

(Not saying that's the true explanation)

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#16

Post by pessimizer »

Produce wrote: post #11
pessimizer wrote: post #5

Step 1: Flurry of fearmongering articles that appeal to the prejudices of the target audience with logical hole large enough to drive a freight train through (usually correlation=causation/post-hoc reasoning or statistical silliness.) Step 2: sell tons of papers, products, and ads to the credulous. Step 3: point out logical flaw. Step 4: sell tons of papers and ads to the incredulous. Step 5: profiles of the people w…

Step 1: throw all your newspapers in the bin, cancel your subscriptions and point all of the major news sites' URL's to 127.0.0.1. Step 2: start reading scientific journals and other high quality sources of information. Step 3: call all of your friends idiots for not doing the same. Step 4: begin to hate your life more and more because you can't identify with the appaling ignorance that surrounds you. Pessimistic ste…

Avoid step 3. Separating lies from truth in the media is a full time job. Most people have other full time jobs, children, and mortgages. Be trustworthy and explain without condescension instead of calling people idiots.

Caveat: this will help you to inform the people around you about what you think is true, but it will work even better if what you are saying is silly and appeals to everyone's prejudices.

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#17

Post by pessimizer »

joe_the_user wrote: post #9
DLWormwood wrote: post #2

This is the same old “correlation is not causation” thing that the press never seems to understand. Move along; nothing to see here…

This mis-characterizes the article. "Correlation is not causation" can be said about anything. The article has a number of specific findings which weaken the original finding. Just about every strong and weak scientific finding involves correlation. "Correlation is not causation" comes into play most strongly when a correlation seems assign causation to something with no clear underlying physical mechanism - leap yea…

But the obvious correlation is that of the million situations that could cause someone to sit more, more of them lead to early death than extended life. For example, asthma, arteriosclerosis, and obesity are known to lead to both situations.

When a study comes out that exhaustively controls for at least all of known factors that cause both situations being correlated, give me a call.

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#18

Post by Alex3917 »

graeme wrote: post #15
Alex3917 wrote: post #8

These studies on sitting on completely overblown. One of the most consistent findings that holds true across all cultures is that the more years of schooling people have, the longer they live. If sitting was really all bad for you, this wouldn't be the case since not only is schooling a highly sedentary activity, but people with more schooling are also much more likely to have sedentary jobs.

You're ignoring the possibility that sitting is bad, but the negative impact is outweighed by the other advantages accompanied by education. (Not saying that's the true explanation)

"You're ignoring the possibility that sitting is bad, but the negative impact is outweighed by the other advantages accompanied by education."

I mean that's basically what I believe to be the case. Even if sitting is bad for you, which I'm not convinced of but which wouldn't especially surprise me, I'm sure that for many people the good effects of sitting can outweigh the bad, not just in school but all throughout life.

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#19

Post by tptacek »

aimatt wrote: post #7

I made my own standing desk and I've been using it for a year now. I won't go back because just by doing that, I have more energy through the day. Who cares what the flip-flopping WSJ keeps saying.

You are very possibly harming yourself far more with a standing desk than you would by sitting. Sitting is correlated with fat metabolism issues, but standing for periods of just 10-15 minutes is correlated with vascular disease; standing was shown in studies to correlate with increased stress hormones and increased blood density.

You are better off setting a timer and, every 20-30 minutes or so, getting up and moving around (you don't have to exercise strenously; just walking for a couple minutes from one spot to another seems to do it).

Re: Don't Blame Sitting — Yet — for Shorter Lives of the Sedentary

#20

Post by a_bonobo »

Produce wrote: post #11
pessimizer wrote: post #5

Step 1: Flurry of fearmongering articles that appeal to the prejudices of the target audience with logical hole large enough to drive a freight train through (usually correlation=causation/post-hoc reasoning or statistical silliness.) Step 2: sell tons of papers, products, and ads to the credulous. Step 3: point out logical flaw. Step 4: sell tons of papers and ads to the incredulous. Step 5: profiles of the people w…

Step 1: throw all your newspapers in the bin, cancel your subscriptions and point all of the major news sites' URL's to 127.0.0.1. Step 2: start reading scientific journals and other high quality sources of information. Step 3: call all of your friends idiots for not doing the same. Step 4: begin to hate your life more and more because you can't identify with the appaling ignorance that surrounds you. Pessimistic ste…

Uncritically reading every scientific paper you come across and taking the information in there for absolute truth is dangerous and a problem many untrained journalists have.

You need to have a background in sciences and a minimal understanding of statistics to properly judge the results - is the sample-size large enough, is it varied enough, did they use the correct statistical test for correlation - lots of papers out there are absolute crap (either unrepeatable results or missing mountains of needed information), published just because someone was friends with the editor or all peer-reviewers were asleep that day.

Note: Even the mythical Open Access doesn't help with this problem, as there too are editors deciding in favor of their friends and peer-reviewers gone fishing.

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