Renewable Revolution

MattS is saying by his chart that Life Expectancy at Birth is going up. He is right. AG is saying Life Expectancy at aged 7-10 is going down. He hasn't charted it, but he might be right.  How can both be true?  Because the first year of life is when people are at the highest risk of birth defects showing up, and are generally less resilient to disease and trauma (birth itself is often traumatic). Something like this effect extends to age 11, that is the chances of dying in the current year goes down until age 10-11, and then starts going up again.

So which is the right measure to use to substantiate the claim that modern medical intervention does/doesn't extend your life?  Well, at what age does modern medical intervention start?  At birth, of course.

Now to prove something like this, you really need to be a lot more specific in your statements. 
1.  You need to state which population you are considering - the US is NOT the only country in the world, despite its exceptionalism, but let's consider the US anyway.
2.  You need to state the time range over which you are considering "going up/down" - since medical procedures have been used to attempt to prolong life as far back as the data goes, we need ALL the data available.

The data is presented in Life Tables for each year. The US Life Table for 2010 is available at
ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Publications/NVSR/63_07/Table01.xlsx
from which you really only need one data point - Expectation of life at age (x) for Age = 0 - 1, but you can choose some other age if you want.

There are also Abridged Life Tables published, where the "x"s are grouped in five year brackets, or you can compose your own age bracket (like 7 - 10), but this is not just simple addition. 7 - 10 is an odd sort of group to choose - I suspect it would be influenced by boys killing themselves by doing silly things like falling out of trees or drowning.

Then you download all the life tables going back as far as you can, to collect the corresponding set of data points over the years, and then chart them.

Fortunately some analysis has already been done for you by the demographers:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63_07.pdf
In 2010, the overall expectation of life at birth was 78.7 years. Between 2009 and 2010, life expectancy at birth increased for all groups considered. Life expectancy increased for both males (from 76.0 to 76.2) and females (80.9 to 81.0) and for the white population (78.8 to 78.9), the black population (74.7 to 75.1), the Hispanic population (81.1 to 81.4), the non-Hispanic white population (78.7 to 78., and the non-Hispanic black population (74.4 to 74.7).

AG, by picking the unusual age bracket 7 - 10, seems to be selecting the data that minimises the "child effect", and maximises the "adult effect".  This is statistically valid, but is a common way statisticians bend things to support a point.

Anyhow, it has been admitted by everyone that antisepsis intervention does make a difference (it saved my life at my last hospital visit), so the argument seems to be that only SOME interventions make things worse.  This argument can only get somewhere if you look for as many points of agreement as possible, and stop shouting "I'm right!" and "You just don't get it !" at each other.

Palloy said,

This argument can only get somewhere if you look for as many points of agreement as possible ...

True, IF we can AGREE on what a "REPUTABLE" source of empirical data is. Can you trust the World Health Organization (WHO) to tell you what the number of deaths from radiation caused sickness and birth defects are? NO. WHY? Because in the late 1950's they were GAGGED by the Atomic Energy Commission (prohibiting publishing epidemiological studies about radiation effects without the "approval" of the fox in the henhouse AEC). The AEC morphed into the NRC which continues to spread the nuclear happy talk agnotology far and wide in "REPUTABLE" publications. YOU, as a mathematician, are hamstrung by mens rea profit over planet folks entrenched in the status quo BECAUSE you have NO OTHER DATA SOURCE. Of course data can be manipulated. But your assumption that the original "empirical" data was not massaged is NOT realistic.

Which means:
A) My overall point is NOT the cohort in life expectancy; it is my healthy distrust of most of the data.

B) There IS NO OBJECTIVE MATHEMATICAL standard that you can use to measure who is right here.

C) There is NO common ground between MattS and myself on what "Reputable" empirical data is.

D) This is not really an argument about life expectancy anyway; it's an argument about competing world views that are REALLY incompatible because one world view STRESSES that, sans measurable empirical data, no phenomenon is REAL, while the other STRESSES that, even though it is impossible to measure the response of biochemical mechanisms to the metaphysical activity, said metaphysical power is MORE powerful and MORE real than measurable phenomenon.

The best I could say is that the 3D universe is a subset of the overall universe. Hence, there is SOME predictability that science can work on and study to obtain improved health care. But that in no way provides an excuse to claim "miracles" are NOT really miracles because ALL have a cause and effect empirically measurable source. And, just you wait, soon we'll have it all figured out. That's your position, isn't it Palloy?  IOW, YOU have FAITH in your empirical world WITHOUT all the answers. Hell, you don't even want to admit the published data by TPTB is slanted six ways from sunday!  You don't want to admit that THAT is the NORM, not the exception to the rule. Neither does MattS.

And it's a never ending story because I finger the NRC and you will dig up some data by somebody here or there that is "irrefutable" followed by me digging up some that I claim is "irrefutable" and so on and so forth. AT NO POINT in that exchange will you ADMIT to the POSSIBILITY that "irrefutability through empirical evidence" is IMPOSSIBLE in human biochemical events involving spontaneous healing even if I provide a laundry list of documented events of this nature. YOU and Matts will ALWAYS fall back on the "Well, someday we are going find out! That's what SCIENCE is about! So There!". 

But I am supposed to **** can my FAITH because a "miraculous event" cannot be measured.   I don't think so.