Nobel Prize Winners Live Longer

anthemaniac writes "A new study finds those who won Nobel Prizes between 1901 and 1950 lived about 2 years longer than nominees who didn't win. The researchers conclude that the instantly conferred social status leads to health benefits. From the story: 'The research rules out the possibility that intervening prize-related money itself adds the years through improved prosperity.' If you're thinking of aiming for the prize, pick the right field. Nobel laureates in physics lived nearly a year longer than winners in chemistry."

Comments

Three Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Correlation, causation, etcetera.

Another reason I hate science "reporting"

[MustardMan]

It really bugs me when they post these things as if they are fact, and then give no indication whatsoever about how accurate the results are. You're talking about 135 winners out of 524 nominees - not exactly a huge sample size. Is it that hard to put in a few extra characters telling you what the error bars are? Something as simple as "the researchers found that nobel winners live 2 (+/- 0.5) years on average" would do, as would a sentence saying "the standard deviation was 0.5". How are we supposed to make any judgement about the validity of the study if we don't at least have the tiniest insight into the statsitics?

samples

[caffeinemessiah]

Nobel winners - that's a MASSIVE sample size, eh? Especially when comparing against the general population. This sounds NOT like cheesy made-for-CNN sensationalism.

bad

[Anonymous Coward]

*whacks CowboyNeal with a rolled up newspaper*

NO.

Of course

[YGingras]

They are already old when they win and the ones who dies young can't win. Noble stated that no dead person could win the Nobel Prize. Many often object that Rosalind Franklin the Prize with Watson and Crick but the fact is that she was already dead and Nobel Prize didn't have the power to name her even if they believed that she was deserving.

Narrow Sample Set?

[Bonker]

Nobel Prize Nominees as the control, and Nobel Prize Winners as the sample?

Gee criminey... It's like using tweezers to pick up sand grains on the far shore of the bell curve to see how sandy they are.

FTFA:

An analysis of 524 nominees for the Nobels in physics and in chemistry between 1901 and 1950 showed that the group's 135 winners lived about two years longer than the also-rans. The finding points to the health benefits of social status and suggests that status benefits the bodies of the cerebrally normal too.

A single car crash could have skewed your margins on that.

Meh.

[Larus]

Physics and chemistry before 1950s were mainly conducted in developed countries under very supportive atmosphere. Physics and chemistry today are conducted near everywhere in university labs, mostly insufficiently funded, overshadowed by other technological developments such as stem cells and nano-transistors. The PhDs either work in fields totally irrelevant to their studies (on Wall St. or in booming high tech) or get their lives squeezed out of them by constant pressure to publish and the tenureship rat-race. If we measure their lifespan after 1950s we may get headlines like 'Science shortens your lifespan by 10 years' etc etc.

No statistics was used to back up this hypothesis.