Comments on: Fictional Epidemiology

By: jiangjiang

jiangjiang — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 02:53:14 +0000

ed hardy ed hardy ed hardy clothing ed hardy clothing ed hardy shop ed hardy shop christian audigier christian audigier ed hardy cheap ed hardy cheap ed hardy outlet ed hardy outlet ed hardy sale ed hardy sale ed hardy store ed hardy store ed hardy mens ed hardy mens ed hardy womens ed hardy womens ed hardy kids ed hardy kids ed hardy kids

By: ceec

ceec — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 11:35:19 +0000

I’m sure there are other forms of sin than rock, but let’s face it, rock is the worst. I’m pretty sure that once you get to a certain level of rock you will burn in hell, i.e. it is a binary condition. If you insist, though, you could calibrate rock quotients on a scale using:

Length of hair (for boys)
Largness of hair (for girls)
Tightness of trouser
Ever claimed to enjoy long guitar solo
Lifetime consumption of amphetamines
Plans to grow a very big beard later in life (if positive for this condition, likely to burn in hell anyway so not a failsafe indicator)

By: Littleshim

Littleshim — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 22:19:55 +0000

Definitely some sort of control is needed for the varying “rock” quotients of the musicians. Maybe someone could come up with that?
That being said, rock musicians seem a less-than-ideal choice for this study. As people have said, it hasn’t been around that long, and rockers aren’t the only hedonists around. What about actors? Cinema’s been around a lot longer, and there’s plenty of drink, sex and drugs in theatre. There’s a much bigger subject base in there too.
You could probably do something with the opium and absinthe-glugging Romantic poets as well. They were pretty wild. And generally died young, I believe. Then again, so did everyone else back then.

By: Nurn

Nurn — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 21:16:47 +0000

Does Mozart count as a dead rock star? dead at 26 (I believe), he must drag the average down a bit…

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:44:01 +0000

But wait, what about jazz musicians?

I remember Lenny Henry pointing out that American popular music forms whose names -don’t- refer to the sexual act are relatively rare…

By: Robert Carnegie

Robert Carnegie — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 23:42:22 +0000

Anecdotally, Billie Piper seems to have given up pop music for a far more dangerous career. (Fill in your own punch-line. Twiddly-dum, twiddly-dum, twiddly-dum, oo-ee-oo… I cross the void beyond the mind…)

By: Chris Coldham

Chris Coldham — Sat, 19 Aug 2006 22:49:07 +0000

“Occupation” is recorded on death certificates. You could select out “rock musician” or equivalent and compare to a control group.

By: amoebic vodka

amoebic vodka — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 22:01:47 +0000

Well, you can always use cddb, or the free alternative freedb as they categorise CDs to genres.

www.freecddb.org/
www.gracenote.com/

We’re not entirely sure if it can be queried by genre, but it would save having to classify what counts as rock. As we doubt they were classified with this experiment in mind, then that will stop bias creeping in from deciding that anyone under 30 isn’t a rock star.

By: Bob O'H

Bob O'H — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:55:06 +0000

Even with case control, it’s not easy: the controls have to be people who have lived up to the point where they could become famous rock stars. I would recommend talking to your tame statistricians first: getting the right data will make everything else a lot easier.

I wonder if the way to approach the analysis is to view it as a counting process: death rates in the general population can be calculated, and then one can simply see if the death rates of rock stars are higher or lower than predicted (I’m, um, simplifying a bit). The following paper might be useful:
Keiding, N. (1991). AGE-SPECIFIC INCIDENCE AND PREVALENCE – A STATISTICAL PERSPECTIVE. JRSS A154: 371-412.
at least as a starting point. This is still an active area of research, but not one I follow too closely.

Bob

By: CDavis

CDavis — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:24:47 +0000

Have seen no existing mention, I feel I should point out the hugely apposite contribution to this debate made by the excellent Mitch Benn: tinyurl.com/rcng5

By: Gleamhound

Gleamhound — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 12:22:38 +0000

I am surprised and disappointed that they didi not use the venerable internet list of “Dead Porn Stars”. Obvious sinners the lot of them. I have been using this list for years as a brilliant example of bad epidemiology.

By: jj_hankinson

jj_hankinson — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 12:17:54 +0000

Should Chris Rock get his own (confusing) category too?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Rock

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:18:44 +0000

i know wiki is famously unreliable, but we could get a figure pretty easily by going through all the biogs under “hard rock”. given the crazed obsessiveness of music fans i’d say rock musicians biographies are probably among the more accurate info on wiki, at least for the most basic data, if not rat munching antics.

By: pseudomonas

pseudomonas — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:08:55 +0000

Some kind soul has already compiled en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_by_genre

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:59:03 +0000

no way dude, i’ve been slam dancing at my desk to christian rock all afternoon

www.christianrock.net/listen2.asp?userid=

much of it is what chris moyles would describe as “ghey”.

By: ceec

ceec — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 15:52:14 +0000

The internet is not being helpful in defining “christian rock”. This is what I found. They’re not giving much away here, but I’m getting the distinct impression that it’s not quite de rigeur to use the word “rock” in this connection…

“Contemporary Christian Music (or CCM) is a classification of Christian music as well as popular music in general. It is not a musical style or genre, as it refers to several types of music. Instead, it is called “contemporary” because it is distinct from traditional and southern gospel music. It is called “Christian” “on account of a perceived connection to what [self-identified fans of CCM] regard as Christianity” “(Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, 2002). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Rock_music

By: Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:22:21 +0000

i think christian rockers could be the key to this. maybe we should work out the average age at death of the ones who died young…

By: ceec

ceec — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:18:21 +0000

John A: That is an excellent suggestion. Does the rock cancel out the christianity though? I think we need three arms, actually:

1. Christian rockers
2. Sinners (i.e. other rockers)
3. Non-rock orientated people choosing “life” (none of you cynics choosing “death” – you are obviously veering too much towards category 2.)

By: John A

John A — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:35:42 +0000

So how would we do this properly?

I’d like to see a Christian Rock control group. Since many of them are born again they would be expected to have a similar background to the other rocker group.

By: acedia

acedia — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:07:12 +0000

They also appear to have mysteriously overlooked “rock stars” (heck, if the term can encompass Karen “Goddess of Thunder” Carpenter, it can stretch to a few old bluesmen/women) who died old like John Lee Hooker (who died at 83), Ray Charles (73), Muddy Waters (68), Nina Simone (70), Howlin’ Wolf (66), Albert King (69)… Need I go on? And the blues is the devil’s music, after all.