
What Are Friends for? A Longer Life - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21well.html?8dpc
======
asciilifeform
Why is no one questioning which way the causation arrow is pointing in such
studies?

~~~
jnovek
Well, take this statement --

"In 2006, a study of nearly 3,000 nurses with breast cancer found that women
without close friends were four times as likely to die from the disease as
women with 10 or more friends."

The results cited in the article seem to only imply a correlation. It seems
like the author of the article implied causation to add a bit of journalistic
flair. After all, it would be a much less interesting article if it simply
stated correlations.

~~~
dejb
"In 2006, a study of nearly 3,000 nurses with breast cancer found that women
without close friends were four times as likely to die from the disease as
women with 10 or more friends."

You could always argue that there was a common cause to both the lack of
friends and the lack of survival. Perhaps you'd call it a 'life force' until
you worked out the details. Perhaps there is a gene that manifests as both
solitude seeking and reduced survival options.

Whatever the case I think a lot of people would prefer articles like this to
at least mention that there are other possibilities rather than spending time
on fluffy and frankly uninteresting anecdotes.

~~~
Ardit20
You seem to be in denial although your point about correlation not meaning
causation is well taken.

However if we take the case of smoking we may say smoking does not cause
cancer it only seems to be an ingredient which is found when people die of
cancer. I mean technically correlation does not imply causation, but
practically in some cases as the one the article is talking about it kinda
does. Sure enough there might be something else which causes people to seek
friends and that very same thing causes people to die earlier, however what we
know is that having friends is a good thing and it seems they prolong your
life. Now the way I formulated the last sentence it sounds like correlation
but really it implies causation.

~~~
eru
That's common sense. Careful: Common sense does not always hold up in science.

------
christofd
Why are all these NYT top articles showing up on here? I can read the NYT
myself. Don't really need HN to mention them. Just my two cents...

~~~
mariana
that, and the fact that is needed an account to access nytimes... post a free
link please.

~~~
whughes
Register the account using a throwaway email address. NY Times is one of the
most linked sites here, and the content is certainly worth the small amount of
effort.

