Question

A recent study reported that people who ate 27 peanuts every day had a median lifespan of 20 years longer than those people who didn't eat nuts. Provide two statistical reasons why we can't conclude that it would add 20 years to your life to eat 27 peanuts each day.

Answer 1

A recent study reported that people who ate 27 peanuts every day had a median lifespan of 20 years longer than those people who didn't eat nuts. We can't conclude that it would add 20 years to your life to eat 27 peanuts each day.

Reason (i) The median value represent 50% of the observations are above the median point and 50% below the median point. Here in this study exact shape of the distribution is not known. Hence it can not be concluded for the entire population. So we can't add 20 years to your life to eat 27 peanuts each day.

(ii) No statistical hypothesis testing has been done and the sample size, level of significance are also unknown. Hence  we can't add 20 years to your life to eat 27 peanuts each day.