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This is just the No true Scottsman fallacy.

"Loma Linda residents have some of the highest lifespans in the world."

"Well it turns out they actually just have average lifespans."

"Only true Loma Linda residents have the highest lifespans."

If you discount everyone who died at a normal age, you can conclude that Loma Linda residents are doing something special.




Loma Linda residents do have some of the highest lifespans in the world. Not on average -- but that wasn't Buettner's point. His point was that there's an unusual number of long-living outliers there.


That doesn’t seem to be a claim I see, he said ten years longer on average.


This is not a No True Scotsman fallacy ... and if you argue otherwise, you're falling for the No True Scotsman fallacy.

Just kidding. But more seriously, the original claim was deeply flawed so it makes sense to challenge the criteria for the population study.




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