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submitted 9 months ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/animals@beehaw.org
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[-] Lowbird@beehaw.org 31 points 9 months ago

Way to confuse correlation and causation, jeez. We can't conclude causation from this. And it looks like even the stufy abstract itself makes this mistake.

For all we know, maybe elderly folks who are doing worse already get cats because they require less exercise (for the human) and consistent personal attention.

[-] Lowbird@beehaw.org 19 points 9 months ago

From the study paper, if I'm understanding correctly, it appears they gave each participant an initial "baseline" self-reported survey covering everything from health history to subjective personality characteristics, and then they weighted their statistical analysis different for dog owners and cat owners to "balance" against dog and cat owner baseline characteristics. "Weight was calculated based on the physical, social, and psychological characteristics of community-dwelling elderly Japanese dog and cat owners." It says, followed by two quite different lists of which characteristics were used to calculate the weight for dog owners vs cat owners. Color me unconvinced.

Also worth noting that dog and cat owners were defined by whether they marked current or past ownership on the self-reported survey. So if you had a dog when you were 30 or 20 or 13, you're in the dog owner group even if you've never had a dog since, and seemingly regardless of how long you had the dog. It's unclear what they did for people who owned both over the course of their life, but I think they just left them out, unless they were looking for "most recent type of pet owned" rather than "only type of pet owned". I don't know.

The study appears to have been funded by Japanese health institutions/centers rather than, like, a dog food company or something, so that's good.

Apparently they also did a previous study that concluded dogs had a positive effect against "frailty and death". Seems to likewise confuse correlation for causation.

Overall, I think someone really likes dogs, and I don't personally trust any of the rest of this.

[-] minishoemaze@beehaw.org 15 points 9 months ago

I didn't see a link to the study in the article, I believe this is it: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10583170/

[-] Lowbird@beehaw.org 10 points 9 months ago

Way to confuse correlation and causation, jeez. We can't just conclude owning dogs causes reduced dementia risk from this, and even the study abstract makes this mistake.

For all we know, for example, it could be that elderly folks who are already doing worse get/are given cats because they require less constant personal attention and exercise (for the human).

And this is assuming the study was well conducted and there was no p-hacking or suchlike involved. I haven't really looked into the paper properly but the size of the reported effect and the weirdness of the claim makes me a bit wary.

[-] Drusas@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago

The article is short, but it says that. It suggests that the increased physical and social activity that are associated with dog ownership are a likely cause.

[-] Mothra@mander.xyz 10 points 9 months ago

Well now we know why it's a crazy cat lady and not a dog lady or a golfish lady

[-] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 12 points 9 months ago

I have met some absolutely batty aquarium enthusiasts

[-] chahk@beehaw.org 9 points 9 months ago

Hey! I resemble that comment!

[-] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 6 points 9 months ago

Hah I had a friend who said, and I quote, "man I love my saltwater tanks but I didn't realize how much I'd end up spending maintaining them. Anyway, I picked up another job on the side, so I'm sorry we haven't been hanging out as much"

this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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