98.6 Degrees Fahrenheit Isn't the Average Anymore (smithsonianmag.com) 148
schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal: Nearly 150 years ago, [German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich] analyzed a million temperatures from 25,000 patients and concluded that normal human-body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. In a new study, researchers from Stanford University argue that Wunderlich's number was correct at the time but is no longer accurate because the human body has changed. Today, they say, the average normal human-body temperature is closer to 97.5 degrees Fahrenheit (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source).
To test their hypothesis that today's normal body temperature is lower than in the past, Dr. Parsonnet and her research partners analyzed 677,423 temperatures collected from 189,338 individuals over a span of 157 years. The readings were recorded in the pension records of Civil War veterans from the start of the war through 1940; in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1971 through 1974; and in the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment from 2007 through 2017. Overall, temperatures of the Civil War veterans were higher than measurements taken in the 1970s, and, in turn, those measurements were higher than those collected in the 2000s. The study has been published in the journal eLife.
To test their hypothesis that today's normal body temperature is lower than in the past, Dr. Parsonnet and her research partners analyzed 677,423 temperatures collected from 189,338 individuals over a span of 157 years. The readings were recorded in the pension records of Civil War veterans from the start of the war through 1940; in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey I conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1971 through 1974; and in the Stanford Translational Research Integrated Database Environment from 2007 through 2017. Overall, temperatures of the Civil War veterans were higher than measurements taken in the 1970s, and, in turn, those measurements were higher than those collected in the 2000s. The study has been published in the journal eLife.
Obvious, to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Average blood flow is much reduced nowadays. Because people just stay inside and sit on a chair, doing barely any manual work at all.
I remember the times when your body was always "glowing" from working, outside, in the cold even. Peope were fitter.
Nowadays it's not necessary anymore. Which is both a good and a bad thing. (Digestion, the immune system's circuatory system, and several other faxtors depend on us moving [mostly walking] a lot.)
This can even be tested: Check the temperatures of people in places where manual labor and walking are common, versus places whete they aren't.
But we'd also have to check for warm climate vs cold climate and inside vs outside work, to get a useful result.
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That sounds right. It fits in with one of the obvious causes of oveweight and obesity: not enough physical work, combined with plentiful tempting food and drink.
Success breeds failure.
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Self sadly included of late....
Re:Obvious, to me. (Score:4, Interesting)
We've also got the whole 'infection' thing under much better control than 150 years ago via improved hygiene, antiseptics, antibiotics and general awareness of germs, so there is much less stress on the human body overall these days.
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We've also got the whole 'infection' thing under much better control than 150 years ago via improved hygiene, antiseptics, antibiotics and general awareness of germs, so there is much less stress on the human body overall these days.
OTOH, a lot of people have a chronic low-level inflammation due to the psycho-social stress of modern working life.
Re:Obvious, to me. (Score:5, Interesting)
You seriously think people today are more stressed out by the modern working life than they were 150 years ago? Is that, honestly, your position? That Facebook, Donald Trump, and sitting in an office 8 hours a day is more stressful than spending 16 hours a day in a factory or working out in a field, and still not knowing if you'll have enough money to buy food today? Food which may or may not even be safe to eat?
Let's be serious: humans today (on average, in the developed world) have so little to actually stress about, they do things like watch horror movies or go on Twitter to provoke stress reactions. Humans obviously still experience stress, but not because modern life is actually all that stressful, but because humans are wired that way. Humans who never stressed about things died when the tiger they didn't worry about killed them in their sleep. Modern life still has some genuine stresses, of course, but it's so much less than in the past.
It's Relative (Score:5, Insightful)
And the quantity of stressors that come our way daily is significant.
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True, you're more likely to spend 16 hours (including commute) working in a warehouse or hoping to get enough rides in your Uber car or enough food deliveries to pay the rent, little well pay for food which is likely to be junk food that you wonder how healthy it is.
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>"I wonder about the impact of taking the measurements in cold rooms versus warm, as air conditioning is much more prevalent now than in the 70s."
And one thing I have noticed about air conditioning over my lifetime is that the average so-called "comfort" temperature has been going down and down in buildings. It used to be common to set temps to around 77. Gradually, I have seen it plummet to something like 72! In the summer, I am actually uncomfortably COLD in most buildings and have to carry a jacket
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This is not how it works. For Pete's sake, stop modding up bullshit.
https://www.rush.edu/health-we... [rush.edu]
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You don't need a study to prove it, it's not even logical. Take any human who's in/out of shape, and have them train or put on sit on the couch to get the other way. Their body temp doesn't change with fitness...sheesh.
Lower population inflammation (Score:5, Informative)
From the published paper, linked in the OP:
Although there are many factors that influence resting metabolic rate, change in the population-level of inflammation seems the most plausible explanation for the observed decrease in temperature over time. Economic development, improved standards of living and sanitation, decreased chronic infections from war injuries, improved dental hygiene, the waning of tuberculosis and malaria infections, and the dawn of the antibiotic age together are likely to have decreased chronic inflammation since the 19th century. For example, in the mid-19th century, 2–3% of the population would have been living with active tuberculosis (Tiemersma et al., 2011).
The data in the paper comes from Americans (starting with civil war veterans up through modern times) and discusses extra weight (obesity) over time. Author's Conclusion: it's not because of obesity.
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No, but it's very likely secondary to reduced thyroid levels thanks to the markedly increased level of dietary phytoestrogens (mainly soy and flaxseed products).
Obesity is a co-symptom therefrom, not a cause.
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Re:Obvious, to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
I recently watched the documentary film Apollo 11, based on NASA footage of the mission. What struck me was how FIT everyone appeared to be. Not just the people you would expect to be fit, like the astronauts, but people who were nominally sedentary, like the ground-based staff. There were no portly people. Nowadays, you go into a similar, large governmental installation and everyone is overweight.
It would not surprise me that the change in body mass over the last 50 years would not also create a change in measured temperature. If nothing else, the change in dissipation rate for a lower surface area to volume ratio would screw up the nominal balance.
Having now scanned through the published article on eLife (which is not paywalled), the authors do consider weight, but do not find it a factor. The do, interestingly, suggest the alternative that latent infection in the three cohorts they studied would have decreased, and, therefore may have skewed the average values.
Re: Obvious, to me. (Score:2)
And body temp is a measure of base metabolism. Pregnant women run a higher basal temp than before getting pregnant. They also burn a shit ton of calories growing a child.
It's global Cooling (Score:4, Funny)
Re: It's global Cooling (Score:4, Funny)
The Earth isn't warning, you are just getting colder. QED.
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That explains it. The Earth isn't actually getting (Score:2)
Turn down yur thermostat (Score:2)
Rectal vs Oral (Score:2, Interesting)
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That's a shitty way of taking a temperature measurement.
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In Europe, lots of adults use rectal because it's more accurate and we're not so anal about our bodies.
Doesn't that indicate the opposite? (Score:2)
> Europe, lots of adults use rectal because we're not so anal
If you stick things up your butt, doesn't that mean you're more anal? Just sayin.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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Yes, let's assume all of the people involved in this study don't know what they're doing to the extent of overlooking such a basic fact.
Known 40 years ago (Score:3)
This has been known a long time. We were taught about this years ago.
Re:Known 40 years ago (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, here's a two-parter Freakonomics podcast on it from 2016:
http://freakonomics.com/podcas... [freakonomics.com]
It appears like the authors listened to the podcast and decided to cash in on it. The claim that the initial estimate was validated is completely false.
The reason is simple (Score:2)
Re:The reason is simple (Score:4, Funny)
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How is this news? (Score:3)
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give them IgNobel prize (Score:2)
They worked hard for that
Natural units (Score:2)
Crikey kids, calm down about units. I think that in the UK we have finally got things about right.
* Temp: deg C unless you are aged over 80ish in which case you use witches per log or deg F as desired.
* Time: second
* Length: metre or foot or inch if the centimetre turns out to be too short by 2.54. Kms are fine for Olympics and other oddities but not on the road thank you, unless the distance is convenient rounded.
* Area: acre, hectare (discouraged as a bit odd) or nanowales
* Mass: For people: 1 stone = 1
Re:"97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, wait...
The non-paywalled, "alternative" source (no doubt the original, not the slashdot-link-farm version) actually uses Centigrade.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com... [smithsonianmag.com]
This site is seriously over the shark now.
Re:"97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:5, Informative)
This site is seriously over the shark now.
Not just this site. That "elifesciences" journal isn't much better. The paper discusses the differences in temperature, taken over 150 years. In their own paper, they admit:
Whether the temperatures were taken orally or in the axilla is unknown;
And:
Precision of the instruments is also unknown.
The NIH already concluded that oral measurements are inaccurate: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
So in other words: the foundation of this research (the accuracy of the temperatures recorded) is flawed. They might as well say that vaccines cause autism.
Re:"97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:5, Informative)
It's possible to calculate tight averages even with relatively large fluctuations (random error) because positive and negative fluctuations tend to cancel at scale. E.g., if I measure the height of a given American it may range ~120-240cm, but if I measure the height of 10,000 random Americans I may find it *always* come out to 175cm +/- 0.1cm.
Your NIH paper is about individual variation and not overly relevant to whether the large averages computed can be trusted. Effects it mentions such as "probe placement" are precisely the kind you would expect to become irrelevant in large data sets. In any case, what would be your explanation for why "accuracy of the temperatures recorded" would result in an monotonic downward trend over long time scales?
But as for whether systemic effects such as a drift in measurement are of concern, the authors argue,
biases introduced by the method of thermometry (axillary presumed in a subset of UAVCW vs. oral for other cohorts) would tend to underestimate change over time since axillary values typically average one degree Celsius lower than oral temperatures (Sund-Levander et al., 2002; Niven et al., 2015). Thus, we believe the observed drop in temperature reflects physiologic differences rather than measurement bias.
That seems pretty reasonable to me.
Overall, the authors have been cautious in their language and addressed concerns in their discussion. They have made their assessment based on a suitably sized data set. They have analyzed subgroups of the data. They have included an expert in statistics. Whether or not the paper's conclusions wind up being upheld by further research, comparing them to anti-science fringe groups is as baseless as it is mean spirited.
Re:"97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:5, Insightful)
It is 309.5 Kelvin. Oh, you meant that other non-scientific unit, Celsius?
Seriously, as this is nominally a tech site, if converting units is a problem to you, you have some real issues to think about...
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It is 309.5 Kelvin. Oh, you meant that other non-scientific unit, Celsius?
Why on earth would you assume that?
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No, I meant why would you assume I meant Celsius?
PS: If you want to get petty and pedantic then I should point out:
a) Any scientist anywhere in the world will understand Celsius, unlike Fahrenheit which will probably have them going online to try and find a converter.
b) The Fahrenheit scale is based on human body temperature, which it turns out is a variable. It's already had to be redefined and this article shows it may have been wrong a second time. You don't get much less scientific (or more "alternate")
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a) Any scientist anywhere in the world will understand Celsius, unlike Fahrenheit which will probably have them going online to try and find a converter.
Any scientist that does that does not deserve the label scientist. Come on! I'm not a scientist and I can do that in my head. Subtract 32, divide by 9 and multiply by 5. If I wanted to be really accurate (like in this case), I'd use a calculator (or a slide rule, since I have one of those on my desk) to do the same.
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Any scientist anywhere in the world will understand Celsius, unlike Fahrenheit which will probably have them going online to try and find a converter.
Just to make this extra clear, see this note on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: "97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:5, Interesting)
The Fahrenheit scale is based on human body temperature
This is patently untrue. The Fahrenheit scale has zero at the coldest temperature observed in Amsterdam at the time the scale was being developed and then 180 degrees between the freezing and boiling temperature of water (go base 60!). It was the first time temperature was delineated in degrees, and that scale made a lot of sense at the time.
Re: "97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:4, Informative)
Turns out it's more complicated [wikipedia.org] than I described. It started out with 0 either as the lower limit of observed air temperature or maybe the temperature of a eutectic saltwater solution, with human body temperature 64 degrees above that (go base-2)! But then it got nudged a few times and ended up with freezing set at 32 (roughly preserving the original zero) and boiling water 180 degrees above that (go base-60!). Human body temperature is not part of the the Fahrenheit scale as it's been used for hundreds of years.
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Turns out it's more complicated [wikipedia.org] than I described.
Thanks for checking.
"It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So" - not Mark Twain.
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Kelvin is THE standard; Celsius is just like Fahrenheit, an alternate scale.
Right or wrong, science does use Celsius. And if you are going to be pedantic, the word is "alternative"! :-(
"Alternate" means back and forth, as in alternating current, or we meet on alternate Tuesdays. (every second Tuesday).
Bloody yanks mangling the language
Re:"97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:4, Informative)
Celsius is just Kelvin minus a constant factor. For any change in temperature, which is almost always the relevant thing, they're the same.
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but the topic isn't concerned with changes in temperature but with absolute temperatures, so your point is worthless
Farenheit is just Kelvin with a simple conversion barely more complex than Celsius. All you're talking about is insignificant details regarding the language used to discuss the actual topic
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Lol. The topic is explicitly about a change in temperature.
Also, the post I replied to was talking about "science does use Celsius." Scientists often use Celsius because it's identical to Kelvin for virtually all calculations. Fahrenheit, because it uses a different size unit, requires the use of different units for every other quantity in the equation.
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Farenheit is just Kelvin with a simple conversion barely more complex than Celsius. All you're talking about is insignificant details regarding the language used to discuss the actual topic
Windows is just Linux with a smaller stability factor. (Just to get back to the REAL topic on Slashdot.)
Re: "97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:2)
We might meet on alternate Tuesdays, but if it is raining we have an alternate meeting spot.
2 different uses, both correct.
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That usage of "alternate" is only from around 1600, the other usage seen here is from around 1700.
Both developed in England, so I'm not sure who you think you are blaming here.
Re: "97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:2)
If you're going to call out someone's pedantry, you should try to be correct yourself.
In the GP's context, "alternate" is an adjective, with a soft second "a". Your definition is for alternate as a verb, with a hard second "a".
"Alternative", on the other hand, is a noun. Many people think it's also an adjective, and some dictionaries agree, but it strikes me as a forced construction that should be replaced with "alternate".
Re: "97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:2)
Sorry, missed a closing html tag. Posting on a smartphone with no preview.
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Kelvin is THE standard; Celsius is just like Fahrenheit, an alternate scale.
Kelvin is really just a small variation on Celsius. We've just shifted the zero point to make it more meaningful for thermodynamics. The step size doesn't matter, so we could have used Fahrenheit steps just as well; we didn't, because Celsius had a better, more scientifically sound definition. Later, Kelvin was redefined independently of Celsius, but that definition is also based on the phase transitions of water, just like Celsius, and of course it maintains the same step size.
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Farenheit is also just a small variation on Celsius, just shifting two points.
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If you argue that you could also argue that Fahrenheit is scientific because it uses the same scale as Rankine. And Rankine also has an absolute 0.
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What do you mean when you say "it is not scientific"? Just do a simple search for "Celsius" in any scientific journal archive, and you'll find hundreds of scientific publications that use it. Here, for example: https://arxiv.org/search/?quer... [arxiv.org]
Try that with the two scales you mention, and you'll find nearly nothing.
The Celsius scale is as scientific as it gets. Even my lab thermometers are graded in degrees Celsius.
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I work in a university lab in Germany and we only Celsius it when it's mean to be for the public, because that is what they understand.
For example when I design an instrument that has a temperature readout it will offer Celsius, also Fahrenheit, and of course Kelvin. But the entire math behind the surface is done in Kelvin.
And of course we use Celsius in everyday situations, because that'
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and we only Celsius it when it's mean to be for the public
I already showed you that any search of real, peer reviewed scientific literature will show a large number of articles that actually use Celsius not for the public at large, but for the narrow audience of their peers.
You can have your local university lab definition of "scientific" and "not scientific", but it seems you do not carry much weight internationally, where the unit is not only used "colloquially", but massively to report measurements and results.
Sorry, that's just how it is.
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"Degree Celsius" is an official SI derived unit. Other derived units are "hertz", "radian", "joule", "pascal", "newton", "watt", "volt", etc., etc..
Degree Celsius is as "scientific" as any of the other SI derived units I just listed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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And Kelvin is not.
Whence did this "gem" come from?
So if you have a coffeemaker in your lab. Is the coffee it brews a scientific coffee?
In our lab, all coffee is 120% scientific. At least two PhD candidates are responsible for the coffee quality at any time, and through the years we have developed a complex interdisciplinary approach for purchasing, storing, roasting and grinding the beans and several techniques to control and improve the brew process.
You've not had coffee if you haven't tried ours.
All our graduates are much sought after by the finest coffee shops of this Earth.
Scientific and Standard SI Units (Score:2)
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Some of those NFL players come from Canada where a grid iron football field is 110 yards as God intended.
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Celsius is Earthist. It discriminates against every other planet. On Mars Celsius is not "scientific" at all. Celsius just shows an ethnocentric preference and Earth bias.
France (Score:2)
The Metric Systems (or SI, take your pick) is a product of the French Revolution.
There is also a French Republican (Revolutionary) Calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Check out the Calendar models, especially Mademoiselle Thermador (Miss July to 'mericans).
Re: France (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting that they proposed a ten day week. Of course, because they are French, the 3 extra days would be purely dedicated to going on strike.
Global Warming! (Score:2)
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Hmm, it was minus 9 C here last week and the salt on the road wasn't melting. How much salt mixed in water do you need to change the melting point to 0F? A spoonful per gallon? A cup per gallon? Meanwhile it is really obvious that if below 0C, things are slippery with white stuff or ice falling out of the sky.
Re: "97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:2)
You's need to mix with alcohol to make it work.
Re: "97.5 degrees Fahrenheit" (Score:2)
What's a gallon?
US or UK?
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That was my next question as a gallon around here is 160 fl. oz and weighs 10 lbs.
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I don't have mod points but +1 I like the cut of your jib.
Re:Also, war veterans are far from average! (Score:4, Insightful)
Detecting some buried issues here. As in "I really hate yanks."
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Geez, maybe the superior Europeans should have run the fucking tests themselves then on their superior citizens. I guess they were too lazy.
Re: Also, war veterans are far from average! (Score:3)
On number 3, this was Civil War veterans. During the war they could walk 20 miles or more in one day. Confederate general Stonewall Jackson's troops could march so far and so fast that they were even referred to as "foot cavalry"
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Your "fitness level" doesn't control your body temperature.
https://www.rush.edu/health-we... [rush.edu]
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That's not what that article says. Although it doesn't mention 'fitness' with respect to body temperatures, it does mention the increased risk of heat stroke in older (generally less fit) people due to lower efficiencies of body temperature regulation mechanisms. And the description of the cardiovascular system's role in temperature regulation would lead one to believe that problems in that system (related to lower fitness levels) can in fact affect this.
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You appear to have not read the parent post that I responded to. He claims it does. If it were the case, you'd be able to detect a difference in an individual as their physical condition changed. That doesn't happen.
Re:Also, war veterans are far from average! (Score:4, Insightful)
1) TFA only makes claims about US populations (the first 3 words of the study abstract are "In the US"), so right there your comment is, well, completely irrelevant, because the only one bringing up "the idea that US war veterans could stand in for the *global* average population" is you. 2) The article brings up studies of 19th century German citizens and 20th century British ones and finds the same cooling trend. In fact the study of the US population was made because the cooling trend was noticed in European data sets, but people thought the first measurement (the one that set the global standard) may have just been wrong.
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Boy, you are really down on US college students. Although it is true that doing studies on US college students really skews the results, and we need to be better about getting more representative samples in the future, the bigger problem here is the replication crisis. Psychology is ground zero for the replication crisis, so wouldn't the methodological problems that led to the replication crisis be a huge deal in the studies that made college students seem so weird? It's very likely those study results abou
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Dishonest "question" is dishonest...
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I see you cannot even read. No surprise, really.
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that would be unMURICAn, wouldn't it?