Geoff,
Our main complaint is not that this research distracts from the big issue. It does, of course, but that’s only because it’s so attractive to those charged with doing something about big issues when there is so little faith in the political system’s ability to do anything about them. The real problem is that this is science being used *instead* of politics. That criticism can be levelled at all sorts of science – when science is expected to be relevant, it’s a difficult trap for scientists to escape – but this study is worth highlighting because its very take-home message is that science can do what politics cannot.

Our Editors’ objection is that it’s a distraction from the Big Issue (poverty, injustice, whatever), and so it is. So is almost everything. Some distractions, like planting trees, are harmless; others, like destroying our energy infrastructure in pursuit of a scientific illusion, are suicidal. Given that the world’s scientific and political establishment are not going to yield to a frontal assault from Climate Resistance and company, maybe a bit of harmless distraction is in order. My own data dredging in the environment pages of the British press suggests a move away from saving the planet towards saving butterflies, encouraging bicycle paths, etc. There must be environment editors who can read a temperature graph, but, as you say of scientists, they have to look after their careers, too. Maybe with a little discrete prodding they can give up their computer models predicting disaster and go back to promoting safety ladders for hedgehogs. That’s where the readers’ hearts, and votes, are.

In other words, this “study” was nothing more than a data dredge.

In other words, they could make it reach whatever conclusion they wanted it to, since they never actually went and looked for themselves.

Handy, that.

Taking a dataset and statistically manipulating it to draw conclusions is nearly on par with burning books. Folks. THIS IS NOT SCIENCE IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM. It proves 0.00000000%. I include the decimal places because that is the degree of certainty that I have that all of the above “conclusions” are totally baseless. And while they may or may not be true, statistical manipulation does not increase the measure of proof they provide by even the furthest decimal percent.

Statistics work when a dataset is carefully crafted. When diligent effort goes into WHAT data will be captured, what it will represent, and the relative quality of any given piece of data. Then that data must be carefully gathered through valid scientific method. If these two requirements are satisfied, THEN the statistical manipulations can be valid, if earnestly and honestly done. But somewhere along the lines, people lost sight of this. Whether it is temperature data, CDC data or whatever, someone just decided one day to just gather random groupings of data, make their manipulations and draw conclusions. In the world of medicine, climate study, and epidemiology, this has become an epidemic, and in some cases has been used to force huge financial burdens on us. And all of these statistical trappings are completely WORTHLESS. Furthermore beyond being meaningless, they require more dependence on the statisticians ability to make assumptions to fill in the many gaps that come with the many unknowns.

The studying how simply living near a park affects different demographics, involves so many degrees of freedom, no statistical treatment could ever draw remotely accurate conclusions, if a supercomputer even existed that could to the calculation in the first place.

It all lies and politics. The laws of physics require no statistical treatment. The laws of chemistry require no statistical treatment. The laws of thermodynamics require no statistical treatment. String theory requires quite a bit, and not surprisingly is neither well received, nor progressing at any notable rate. In fact the quality of any conclusion is usually proportional to the amount of statistical treatment it took to arrive at it.

The more people are fooled into believing that statistics represent any true scientific truth, the more our hopes for civil and intellectual enlightenment sink further and further into darkness.

I am afraid the West is doomed! When the educated among us can make such irrational statements and readers nod as if the lunacy was self evident…we are doomed!

The inequality gap between the rich and the poor has absolutely nothing to do with the populations general health! The populations general health is determined, obviously, by the wealth of all of its citizens, relative to poverty! For example, if you take the wealth of all citizens and reduce it to the poorest levels, than all citizens will be equally poor (no gap at all) and the populations general health will blummet. Even the health of the poorest will diminish as they no longer benefit from having wealthier citizens supporting the infrastructure of society.

Furthermore, if one doubles the wealth of the lower and middle class, the populations general health will improve dramatically, even if you quadruple the wealth of the upper class, making the ‘gap between rich and poor’ much larger than ever!

The goal should be to move citizens away from poverty. The ‘gap’ is irrelevant…except to the media and college professors!

We live in a post-rational world where the things that have become obvious to so many, are so obviously wrong!

This is obviously written by someone who does not live in certain parts of the Southwest USA. Out here we say that someone has been here too long when they can tell when the desert turns green in the Spring.

The up side is, that we have a lot of emptiness between towns, and the desert does have a special beauty all its own.

Why on earth should this be announced as a self-evident truth, given that there are many more poor voters than rich ones? A huge redistribution of wealth could be achieved very simply by going back to the income tax levels which existed under the government of that arch-egalitarian Edward Heath.
But that would be politics, of course, which is far less deserving of discussion in a quality paper than a study which scientifically “proves” something, however trivial.
There are many reasons why I’d prefer to be rich than poor, but living ten years longer isn’t one of them. I somehow feel that what I do between the ages of 80 and 90 is unlikely to be as much fun as what I’m doing now, however rich or poor I may be.