19th August 2011 Fact or Fiction? The Importance of Looking More Closely

Today I came across the following article being shared on Google+. The headline is "Science Reveals Women Who Wear Less Clothing Live Longer". The article claims the following.

A prominent British anthropologist has completed a ground-breaking, 10-year study proving that women who wear less clothing live up to 20 years longer. And the fewer clothes they wear, the longer they live. Writing in the Royal Journal of Social Anthropology, Sir Edwin Burkhart presents the results of over 5,000 interviews with women ages 70 to 120. It's clear from the interviews and graphs shown that those women at the older end of the spectrum consistently wore either fewer clothes throughout their lifetime -- or no clothing at all!

It goes on to further discuss the topic, giving examples and possible explanations.

Copies of this article have spread all over the place. Do people believe the content? Should they? Is it a case of confirmation biased in that people want it to be true?

There are no links to the source, nor is it referenced properly. Sadly, this is often the case in journalism and in itself doesn't mean the information is incorrect. In this case, however, I can find no evidence for the existence of the Royal Journal of Social Anthropology, nor for the 'prominent' anthropologist Sir Edwin Burkhart.

The design of the study seems strange. A 10 year study which doesn't appear to have any follow-up? Why would it take 10 years and how could it be extrapolated to mean 20 extra years' life? Where is the proof of causation and not just correlation (not that any evidence for that is presented here)?

Let's look at some of the information given: "... 5,000 interviews with women ages 70 to 120." Where did the researcher find this 120 year old? According to the Guinness Book of Records,

[t]he oldest person living is Maria Gomes Valentim (Brazil), of Carangola, Brazil, who was 114 years 313 days old as of 18 May 2011. [1]

The quotations from the supposed research subjects are somewhat ridiculous.

Philomena Bushfield, 120, is a life-long nudist who hasn't "worn more than a pair of socks since I was 7." She is rarely sick, still runs in marathons, and has the energy and enthusiasm of a woman half her age. "It also made it much easier to meet men," says Bushfield, who currently has three different boyfriends. 

Could someone who was born in 1891 really have lived her life from 1898 without clothes? Wouldn't we all know about her is she had, especially if she were running marathons while wearing nothing more than a pair of socks!

Now, apart from looking at the content, and there is more that could be said about it,  if we look at the author of the article it is Mark C. Miller, humorist. Surely that is sufficient evidence to take this all with a pinch of salt?

Much as I can see that this is meant as a humorist piece, I find it worrying that people seem to believe it, or to take it at face value. The subject concerns me in that I wonder if it could be used as a weapon against women and their right to dress as they wish. Maybe that is taking it too seriously, but seeing how subtle pressure can be applied to people 'for their own good', I don't really like to see something that could potentially be used like this.

Although this doesn't seem to have been picked up by any newspapers, a recent incident with an article by the BBC on the IQ of Internet Explorer users highlights the danger of not checking our facts and believing everything we read without a critical thought.