Using observational evidence, the Bible noted than the span of life was three score and ten with allowance for some living even longer. Of course not everyone got there.
Yes! This is so important to remind (or teach) people about this in our current health environment. I always remember in tandem with this that before now-common vaccines, healthy adults could suddenly die from something as simple as a cut from a razor (Henry Thoreau's brother, John, died of lockjaw), which skews the numbers, too.
Some people do argue for this, but you obviously lose a lot of information there too, so there are always trade-offs. Life expectancy does summarize mortality rates at all ages in a single number... it's just not as easy to interpret as it sounds given the name.
Typically we count age in whole years ie you are 0 until you have lived a year at which point you turn 1. Therefore accounting for mortality in the first year of life, the modal age of death would be 0. Nowhere in the article are fractional ages used, so 0 would be the mode.
Using observational evidence, the Bible noted than the span of life was three score and ten with allowance for some living even longer. Of course not everyone got there.
Brilliantly debunked. These graphs are so eye-opening!
Thanks Chana! It felt like the right visual was key!!
Yes! This is so important to remind (or teach) people about this in our current health environment. I always remember in tandem with this that before now-common vaccines, healthy adults could suddenly die from something as simple as a cut from a razor (Henry Thoreau's brother, John, died of lockjaw), which skews the numbers, too.
Indeed! We've improved mortality a lot at ALL ages, but especially for infants and kids.
Why then use the average rather than the modal age?
Some people do argue for this, but you obviously lose a lot of information there too, so there are always trade-offs. Life expectancy does summarize mortality rates at all ages in a single number... it's just not as easy to interpret as it sounds given the name.
Because the modal age for most of history will be 0
No one alive is ever zero years old. The post said the modal age is more accurate.
Typically we count age in whole years ie you are 0 until you have lived a year at which point you turn 1. Therefore accounting for mortality in the first year of life, the modal age of death would be 0. Nowhere in the article are fractional ages used, so 0 would be the mode.
I wonder what life expectancy would be today, if you included all abortions?