60-yo men die all the time; anytime someone who writes on diet dies, someone is going to say 'I wonder if this proves/disproves his diet claims', no matter what the claims were or their truth.
Agreed.
More importantly, if Roberts had died at any time before his actuarial life expectancy (in the low 80s, I'd eyeball it, given his education, ethnicity, and having survived so long already), people would make this claim.
Not sure about that, for example if he had died at the age of 81 in a car accident. Although I appreciate your effort, I am not sure that you have the reference class of events correct. The evidence suggest that Roberts died (1) suddenly; (2) due to failure of some bodily system; (3) at an age which is well under his life expectancy. The prior probability of this happening has got to be far less than the prior probability of him simply dying from any cause before his actuarial life expectancy.
At the same time, he was apparently consuming large amounts of butter, omega fatty acids from flax seeds, and other esoteric things. Of course it's difficult to even being estimating the risk inherent in doing such things.
Ironically, Seth Roberts was a big believer in "n=1 experiments."
Do you have an estimate of the probability that Robert's death is related to his supplement regime?
Not sure about that, for example if he had died at the age of 81 in a car accident. Although I appreciate your effort, I am not sure that you have the reference class of events correct.
The all-cause mortality figures were chosen for convenience. I'm sure one could dig up more appropriate figures that exclude accident, homicide, etc. But the reference class is still going to be pretty broad: if Roberts had committed suicide, had developed cancer, had a stroke rather than heart attack (or whatever), had a fall, people would be speculating on biological ro...
You know the drill - If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
And, while this is an accidental exception, future open threads should start on Mondays until further notice.