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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   3704 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 12, 2023

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I'm looking for a chart which appears in Peter Attia's book Outlive. The chart shows that the only reason that life expectancy in the U.S. has increased since 1920 is because we eliminated 8 infectious diseases via vaccination, antibiotics, and sanitation.

I want to find the original source and study for this chart. The author of the study is Robert J. Gordon.

Where is it? Why is this impossible to find? Google, you suck.

The references in Outlive lists it as being from the book "The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War" by Gordon. You can find it on libgen. It appears to be an updated version of a study from the seventies by John and Sonja McKinlay. Maybe it is this study?

Is Outlive worth reading? I haven't gotten around to it, but I heard Attia say he didn't want himself be part of the book, but the publisher more or less forced him to. I'm a bit fed up with pop science books, but I would probably read this one at some point, if the personal anecdotes aren't egregious and platitudes about the importance of the subject matter are kept to a minimum.

p.s. Thanks for the link!

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