"NY" wrote in message
...
"Liz Tuddenham" wrote in message
id.invalid...
Rod Speed wrote:

NY wrote
[...]
OK. So this all hinges on the fact that the birth rate (and maybe
death
rate) varies throughout the year.

Yes, and all you need is the birth day to vary, the
death day doesn't need to to get the statistical quirk.

That makes sense. Birth rate is under human control (to some extent)
and shows annual peaks, but while death rate only shows general seasonal
trends.

If the birth rate is peaky by calendar date and the death rate
is flat, more of the deaths will be on days which coincide with
birthdays - not because there are more deaths on those days but because
there is a greater chance that each dead person had been born on that
day.

That's the bit I don't understand.

Yes.

*Why* will the chance that *I* die on a given date (eg my birthday) be
affected in any way whatsoever by how many people were born on that date?

It doesn’t. The ONLY thing that matters is that there birth day isnt evenly
spread.

Why is it more likely that I will die on a date when many rather than few
other people were born?

It isnt.

but... if the death rate were also peaky and the peaks didn't coincide
with the peaks of the birthdays, the effect could be reduced or even
reversed. This could happen if voluntary euthanasia becomes more
widespread.

I may be starting to understand why I'm having problems with this.
(Hooray, says Rod!)

There are two ways in which the original assertion could have been worded:

- Why do more people die on their birthday than any other day of the year?

- Why is there a greater chance that Person A (as an isolated person) will
die on his birthday than any other day of the year?

There is no difference between those except that the first sends up
up the irrelevant dead end of cause. Its an entirely statistical quirk.

These two may or may not be identical.

They are identical except in the sense that the
first one gets you off on an irrelevant side track.

One considers the population as a whole, and the other treats each person
as an independent individual.

Nope, the effect is entirely statistical.

I'm really not sure what the exact wording of the question was: I've just
given the gist of it, as I remember it several decades later.

I think I'm looking at the problem from the point of view of the second
assertion (each person is an isolated, independent individual),

Because you havent grasped that its an entirely statistical quirk.

and I don't see how the chance of Person A dying on any day is affected in
any way by how many other people happened to have been born on that day
(in one year or another).

It isnt, its entirely a statistical quirk.

Before all this analysis, I would have expected that the chance of a
person dying on any given date was affected solely by environmental
factors (seasonal variation in diseases, climatic variation in immune
system) etc, the person's own gradually increasing chance of dying as they
get older); and was otherwise the *same* probability of dying on any day
of the year, without a spike on the anniversary of the person's birth.

Not entirely, it is clear that some people do just give
up wanting to keep living and just curl up and die.

Its also quite striking how some don’t live long after retiring
and some don’t live long after the spouse dies.

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
Because you havent grasped that its an entirely statistical quirk.

and I don't see how the chance of Person A dying on any day is affected
in any way by how many other people happened to have been born on that
day (in one year or another).

It isnt, its entirely a statistical quirk.

Hmm. So for statistical reasons which don't have a cause (so I'm wasting my
time looking for one!), that fact that more people are born on one day of
the year than another means the each person is more likely to die on the
anniversary of when they were born than on any other date of the year? That
seems counter-intuitive because it is implying that the probability of any
one person dying on a given date (eg that person's birthdate) is dependent
on the number of (presumably independent *) events of other people having
been being born on that same date (though in a variety of different years).

Certainly not a conclusion I could ever have reached no matter how long I
thought about it, but if you say so, I'll have to accept (but not believe)
it ;-)

I think the main problem is that the effect is based entirely on the length
of our calendar before dates start to repeat in new year. If the universe
had been different and the earth had taken (for example) 400 days to go
round the sun (so our dates repeated every 400 rather than 365 days), then
there would still be a greater chance of someone dying 400 days (rather than
365 days) from their birth date. It seems to ascribe some significance to
one day (which relates to the periodicity of the calendar) that makes it
different from all others in the year.


(*) Maybe that's the problem: maybe they are *not* independent because the
distribution of births is based on climatic and social factors.

NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Because you havent grasped that its an entirely statistical quirk.

and I don't see how the chance of Person A dying on any day is affected
in any way by how many other people happened to have been born on that
day (in one year or another).

It isnt, its entirely a statistical quirk.

Hmm. So for statistical reasons which don't have a cause (so I'm wasting
my time looking for one!), that fact that more people are born on one day
of the year than another means the each person is more likely to die on
the anniversary of when they were born than on any other date of the year?

Nope, the day they die is completely irrelevant. It’s the lumpiness in the
day of the year they were born on that produces the small statistical quirk.

That seems counter-intuitive because it is implying that the probability
of any one person dying on a given date (eg that person's birthdate) is
dependent on the number of (presumably independent *) events of other
people having been being born on that same date (though in a variety of
different years).

Certainly not a conclusion I could ever have reached no matter how long I
thought about it, but if you say so, I'll have to accept (but not believe)
it ;-)

You are still mangling the day you die in with the day you were born on.

The day you die on irrelevant to the statistical quirk.

I think the main problem is that the effect is based entirely on the
length of our calendar before dates start to repeat in new year.

Nope.

If the universe had been different and the earth had taken (for example)
400 days to go round the sun (so our dates repeated every 400 rather than
365 days), then there would still be a greater chance of someone dying 400
days (rather than 365 days) from their birth date.

ALL that matters is the lumpiness of the birth days.

It seems to ascribe some significance to one day (which relates to the
periodicity of the calendar) that makes it different from all others in
the year.

Nope.

(*) Maybe that's the problem: maybe they are *not* independent because the
distribution of births is based on climatic and social factors.

The different lumpiness with birth days and death days is irrelevant.

On Mon, 14 Jun 2021 04:28:25 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Nope

LOL

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing the auto-contradicting senile cretin:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID:

"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
NY wrote
Hmm. So for statistical reasons which don't have a cause (so I'm wasting
my time looking for one!), that fact that more people are born on one day
of the year than another means the each person is more likely to die on
the anniversary of when they were born than on any other date of the
year?

Nope, the day they die is completely irrelevant. It’s the lumpiness in the
day of the year they were born on that produces the small statistical
quirk.

The date when they die isn't irrelevant: the original question was "Why do
more people die on their birthday than any other day of [the year]". In
other words, if you plot a frequency distribution for a large population of
(birth_date - death_date) [ignoring both years] against number of people who
die on each day you get a peak around zero (birth date = death date
[ignoring both years]). This is the statistical quirk that you have been
describing. Why you suddenly say "the day they die is completely irrelevant"
baffles me and makes me wonder if goalposts have inadvertently got moved
somewhere in the discussion.

I'm curious *why* it should be so, but statistics and frequency distribution
only tell us *what* happens, with a vague suggestion that it is as a result
of the varying birth rate over a year. I can't being to imagine *why* a
varying birth rate should cause a spike when birth date = death date, but
I'll take it on trust that it's a statistical quirk.

Given that I can't understand why it should happen, I certainly would never
have guessed that it could happen, if I hadn't already heard the question
"Why do more people die on their birthday than any other day of [the year]",
but at least now I know it does.

Maybe somewhere I'll find its cause explained in more detail that "it's a
statistical quirk" due to varying birth rate over a year.


You are still mangling the day you die in with the day you were born on.

The day you die on irrelevant to the statistical quirk.

If you say that the date when you die is irrelevant to the statistical
quirk, are you sure you're still talking about original question. We're
looking at the spike when birth date and death date are almost the same
which peaks when they are exactly the same. We can't compare birth and death
dates, to see this quirk, unless we look at death date as well as birth
date.


I wonder what the magnitude of the statistical quirk peak is, compared with
the completely separate issue that the death rate also varies over the year
(we initially assumed it was constant to keep things simple and to avoid
varying two things at once). I wonder if the variation in death date
sometimes masks the peak around birth=death date that is the statistical
quirk resulting from the varying birth rate over the year.


So maybe the annoying **** at university was right for more reasons than
that death rate varies over the year and that there are social/accident
factors which cause more death around the birthday. Evidently the variation
in birth rate is also significant. Maybe somehow he deduced that a varying
birth rate would cause a spike. If such as deduction (in the absence of your
description of the statistical quirk) is beyond me when I'm in my 50s with A
level maths and university maths-for-engineering courses, then the fact that
he worked it out at 10 makes him a very clever (but still annoying!) ****
;-)

"NY" wrote in message
...
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...
NY wrote
Hmm. So for statistical reasons which don't have a cause (so I'm wasting
my time looking for one!), that fact that more people are born on one
day of the year than another means the each person is more likely to die
on the anniversary of when they were born than on any other date of the
year?

Nope, the day they die is completely irrelevant. It’s the lumpiness in
the
day of the year they were born on that produces the small statistical
quirk.

The date when they die isn't irrelevant: the original question was "Why do
more people die on their birthday than any other day of [the year]". In
other words, if you plot a frequency distribution for a large population
of (birth_date - death_date) [ignoring both years] against number of
people who die on each day you get a peak around zero (birth date = death
date [ignoring both years]). This is the statistical quirk that you have
been describing. Why you suddenly say "the day they die is completely
irrelevant" baffles me and makes me wonder if goalposts have inadvertently
got moved somewhere in the discussion.

I meant that the day they die is irrelevant to the statistical quirk which
is
entirely due to the lumpiness of the day of the year everyone is born on.

I'm curious *why* it should be so,

Because of the lumpiness of the the day of the year everyone is born on.

but statistics and frequency distribution only tell us *what* happens,
with a vague suggestion that it is as a result of the varying birth rate
over a year.

Nothing vague about it, it’s the reason for the statistical quirk.

I can't being to imagine *why* a varying birth rate should cause a spike
when birth date = death date,

There is no cause and effect, its just a statistical quirk.

but I'll take it on trust that it's a statistical quirk.

Given that I can't understand why it should happen, I certainly would
never have guessed that it could happen, if I hadn't already heard the
question "Why do more people die on their birthday than any other day of
[the year]", but at least now I know it does.

Maybe somewhere I'll find its cause explained in more detail that "it's a
statistical quirk" due to varying birth rate over a year.

There can be no more detail than that.

You are still mangling the day you die in with the day you were born on.

The day you die on irrelevant to the statistical quirk.

If you say that the date when you die is irrelevant to the statistical
quirk, are you sure you're still talking about original question.

Yes.

We're looking at the spike when birth date and death date are almost the
same which peaks when they are exactly the same. We can't compare birth
and death dates, to see this quirk, unless we look at death date as well
as birth date.

I wonder what the magnitude of the statistical quirk peak is, compared
with the completely separate issue that the death rate also varies over
the year (we initially assumed it was constant to keep things simple and
to avoid varying two things at once). I wonder if the variation in death
date sometimes masks the peak around birth=death date that is the
statistical quirk resulting from the varying birth rate over the year.

So maybe the annoying **** at university was right for more reasons than
that death rate varies over the year and that there are social/
accident factors which cause more death around the birthday.

Nope, the only relevant reason is that the day of the year
everyone is born on is what produces the statistical quirk.

Evidently the variation in birth rate is also significant. Maybe somehow
he deduced that a varying birth rate would cause a spike.

Realised, not deduced.

If such as deduction (in the absence of your description of the
statistical quirk) is beyond me when I'm in my 50s with A level maths and
university maths-for-engineering courses, then the fact that he worked it
out at 10 makes him a very clever (but still annoying!) **** ;-)

It has nothing to do with clever, all it needs is insight.

On Mon, 14 Jun 2021 09:00:11 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
Bill Wright addressing senile Ozzie cretin Rodent Speed:
"Well you make up a lot of stuff and it's total ******** most of it."
MID:

I can't be a%$ed reading through this thread to see how closely the actual wording has been
discussed - the trolls are strong here, I can see - but ISTM that you should tell it like this:

"Why is it that more people die on their birth('hidden' small pause)day than on any other?"

Don't repeat it, adopt smug expression, leave the pub with a trail of annoyance behind you...

J^n

On Sun, 13 Jun 2021 20:29:24 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
pamela about Rodent Speed:
"His off the cuff expertise demonstrates how little he knows..."
MID: