I don’t think the takeaway from the Dunning-Kruger effect is "don’t invoke basic aspects of human nature on internet discussion forums unless you’re a trained academic psychologist"
We have no interest in the question of whether the apollo astronauts who have already died will be alive when a human next walks on the moon.
The question is of the apollo astronauts who are still alive, what is the probability that they will still be alive when a human next walks on the moon.
The population under consideration is only astronauts who are alive now.
Survivorship bias would only be involved if you were considering some question that involved all apollo astronauts eg for example if we used the population who are alive now to make a prediction as of the completion of the programme.
This isn't survivorship bias, just imperfect information being sufficient. Will anyone be alive at X date can ignore the dead from the population as irrelevant.
The second question if they are an unusually healthy or sick group doesn't need to look at the dead either. Only ~20 percent of 35 year old men live to 88. Having at least 7 men out of 24 reaching that age is already an long lived group, though not necessarily statistically significant.
Looking at the full numbers gives a more precise number, but 12 of 24 vs 7(+) making it to 88 doesn't change the result. Further, even if it was exactly 7 of 24 again the answer doesn't change.
Thanks for sharing. One argument Postman makes that I find compelling (if not wholly convincing) is that advertising has increasingly replaced "propositions" (testable statements of truth) with images and emotional claims (attractive celebrities, nice sound effects). Since liberal capitalism is built atop the assumption that buyers and sellers are informed and logical (or at least equally ignorant), Postman argues that "the television commercial has mounted the most serious assault on capitalist ideology since the publication of Das Kapital."
It would be interesting to see actual data on this. A team of researchers might take a representative sample of adverts from across the past century and code them for the degree to which they make refutable/provable statements. I'm not so sure you'd see a clear decrease in propsition-ness.
The gender system in German is something Mark Twain poked fun at in his famous essay "The Awful German Language":
"Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl."
I love this perspective. That it's aberrant for a man at his age to pursue further education reflects our society's out-dated view that education is something to be pursued one time and when young.
My father did a Masters of Mechanical Engineering at age 70, as a full time degree. The only affordance to his age was being given an extra hour in the exams.
Following that, he started a Masters of Aeronautical Engineering. Until my mum suggested he spends more time with her at home.
Now he does gym circuit training with a group half his age, at 6am three mornings a week.
