• 18107@aussie.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    51
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 hours ago

    People who drink wine live longer.

    It’s not the wine that’s extending people’s lives, it’s the healthcare and lower stress from having enough money to afford wine.

      • 18107@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 hours ago

        A random magazine comparing average lifespan of different countries.

        Another possible explanation would be that most of the high lifespan countries had universal healthcare.

        I doubt any efforts went into fact checking as the magazine just used the fact to promote wine drinking.

        • Yliaster@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          3 hours ago

          That… doesn’t sound very compelling.

          Alcoholism is associated with disease and death, and wine is just another form of alcohol.

          • 18107@aussie.zone
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            3 hours ago

            That’s correct. It’s an example of why assuming that “correlation = causation” can lead to some bad decisions.

            Drinking wine and living longer are correlated, but it is not likely that one causes the other. It is more likely that there is something else (such as disposable income) that causes both.

            In a similar way, ice-cream sales and drownings peak at the same time every year. The ice-cream is not causing people to drown, and neither are drowning people buying a significant amount of ice-cream. Both can be attributed to the higher temperatures of summer.

            • Yliaster@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              2 hours ago

              Yeah, I remember reading in my psych textbook that ice cream consumption was correlated with homicidal behaviour, which is obviously not causal.