= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Lumifer comments on Open Thread August 31 - September 6 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (326)
A good life expectancy calculator implies a good model of which factors drive longevity. I don't believe such a model exists (for healthy people -- the effects of various illnesses on your life expectancy are known much better). There are a lot of correlation studies but correlations and causality are not quite the same thing.
"Some sort of a model" is a very low bar -- presumably you would like the model to be good. People who will be able to make a good comprehensive model of how various health/diet/lifestyle/etc. interventions affect longevity will probably be in the running for a Nobel.
It's like saying that you found online some investment advice which doesn't look too good, perhaps some LW people would like to construct a model of the markets that will give better advice. Well...
Fair points. I'm don't think what we understand about longevity is as bad as what we understand about investments.
I suppose what I'm looking for is a model which 1) doesn't have any obvious bugs, 2) doesn't contradict anything we do know, and 3) has at least some evidence behind the model. If it produces a fairly wide distribution because that represents the (poor) state of our knowledge, I think that's fine.
The issue of correlation vs. causation also is important, and I'm not sure what we could do about it short of allowing someone to turn off certain features of the model if they believe them to be untrustworthy. For example, I've seen a fair bit about how marriage is correlated with an increase in longevity, and it seems obvious to me that any similar sort of social structure where one has frequent socialization and possibly receives feedback and care is probably where the real benefit is. So I think you can say you are married if you believe your situation is equivalent in some way. Obviously these details need to be shown more rigorously, but this is the basic argument.