Slashdot | Drinking Alcohol May Extend Your Life

Slashdot | Drinking Alcohol May Extend Your Life:

The old correlation--causation confusion

(Score:5, Insightful)

by Ancient_Hacker (751168) on Wednesday December 20, @04:26PM (#17317792)

Well, that would be *excellent*, I love a glass of wine or three a day. A beer or two on a hot day is just heavenly.

But unfortunately the correlation may not imply causation. i.e. people who live longer drink more, but not vice-versa.

• Maybe really sick people don't drink as much.
• Maybe the people that have four drinks a day have to be quite healthy to keep that up day after day after day.
• Maybe drinking keeps them off the streets, or out of other dangerous places.
• Maybe all the 4-drink-a-day people have died already and were not around for a survey.

Lotsa possible ways to spoil things.