User talk:Sowen222

Siamese
Hello, your edits stating that Siamese live longer than other breeds contradicts the Swedish data. The abstract states that "overall mortality of the Persian and the Siamese groups was higher than that of several other breeds". This is a table from the study showing the survival rates of the different breeds at different ages. I can send you the full study if you are interested.--Dodo bird (talk) 23:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not sure if you get a notification when I edit this page, so I've added the text to your talk page as well. Apologies if it is duplicated.

In reply to your comment that my edit contradicts the Swedish study, I do not believe it does, for the following reasons:

The study includes only data from insured cats, only cats up to 13 years, and is over-represented by pure-bred cats (estimated over 70% of non-pure-bred cats are not insured). The average life-span of all domestic cats is roughly 12 years, however the study indicates that 42% of Siamese cats are still alive at 12.5 years, and the median life-span is given as being between 10 and 12.5, implying they live to approximately 20 on average, which is significantly higher than the average. Furthermore, estimating a median life-span with this sample is only useful for insurance purposes, not scientific purposes.

According to the insurance data as I read it, the Siamese cat prior to their 13th year has a higher mortality rate than other insured, pre-bred cats, prior to their 13th year. It doesn't say anything about their mortality rates afterwards. Take humans as an example: they have a higher mortality rate when younger (for a variety of reasons: genetic flaws, infections, trauma due to accidents and falls), but a human which gets through its teenage years is extremely likely to reach old-age, as the mortality rate drops. Furthermore, the mortality-rate young in life can not be extrapolated to later life, and therefore says nothing about how old the cat will become.

Again, I think the study is - from a scientific standpoint - significantly flawed, and only useful for insurance purposes.


 * I have this page on my watchlist, so we can keep the discussion here.
 * "implying they live to approximately 20 on average"
 * You are seriously reading the information wrong. Imagine looking at a group of 100 Siamese cats. At 5 years of age, only 87 will be alive, at 7.5 years, 80 will be alive. At 10 years, 68 will be alive and at 12.5 years, only 48 will still be alive. This means that the median lifespan (which is the point where 50 cats are alive and 50 are dead) is just slightly under 12.5. Average and median are not the same thing but they are generally not far apart. The remaining 48 cats will have to live incredibly long for the average lifespan of the 100 cats to be 20 years. Any speculations on how long the remaining 48 Siamese live and how fast the 62 domestics die will be just that, unless you have sources stating that the Siamese have higher end of life survival. What is known is that Siamese have shorter median lifespan that domestics, and this does not change regardless of what age the >13 year old cats live to.
 * "and therefore says nothing about how old the cat will become."
 * We are still talking about average and medium lifespan right? How long they can potentially live has no relevance to that. There might be some value in presenting the upper range of their lifespan to the reader but a cursory google search turns up nothing much that would meet WP:Reliable Source standards and I have found nothing looking at breed club websites. Any lifespan information tend to be on cats in general and not breed specific. --Dodo bird (talk) 20:34, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I understand your point regarding the 100 Siamese cats. However, whereas you write that how long they potentially live has no relevance, I believe it is essential to completing the data and analysis. This data is, by its own admission, limited to 0 to 13 year-olds. It would be hard to determine the average life-expectency of humans if you only studied the mortality rate of humans up to their 40th year and then tried to extrapolate for what humans might die of after their 40th.

When you write "domestics", do you mean non-pure-bred? If so, the study included a relatively small sample of non-pure-bred, so it's useless - other than for insurance purposes - to compare.

Basically I just think the data is too limited to provide any useful data. Furthermore, when most people ask about the average life-expectancy of their breed of animal, are not interested in including such things as traffic-accidents or dog-attacks, etc., they want information based on the breed itself and medical problems versus those of another breed. They'd also like to know life-expectancy of indoor-only versus other cats. So I would opt for removing the Swedish data comments altogether, and just replacing it with: "There is no source which can give a reliable estimate of average lifespan. Swedish insurance data estimates an average lifespan of 12.5 years, but the data and analysis is not complete. Anecdotal evidence suggests Siamese cats often live into their late teens and early 20s."


 * "It would be hard to determine the average life-expectency of humans if you only studied the mortality rate of humans up to their 40th year and then tried to extrapolate for what humans might die of after their 40th."
 * If more than half of humans die before they reach 40, then their median lifespan will be less than 40. It doesn't matter how long the remaining population lives. That will only affect the average, not the median. In reality, less than 4% of the US population will die at age 40, so of course if you only track the population to 40, you can't get the median lifespan. But if you track them to 81, that's when more than 50% die, you know for certain that the median lifespan is just under 81. You don't have to track them beyond 81 to get the median lifespan. Are you using the terms median and average interchangeable or do you think median not an acceptable way to present lifespan information? If you look at lifespan studies on dogs, most use median instead of average.
 * When you write "domestics", do you mean non-pure-bred? If so, the study included a relatively small sample of non-pure-bred, so it's useless - other than for insurance purposes - to compare.
 * Yes. And you are right that the sample of domestics is relative small. The authors did point that out. But you don't have to compare with the domestics, they have higher mortality compared to any other breeds in the study. (Ragdolls actually have a higher mortality for all ages 10 and under, but they have no figures for 12.5 years likely from lack of enough data.)


 * The data is not limited, approximately 1/3 of purebred dogs are registered with the insurance company and the authors stated that the database is representative of purebred cats in Sweden. Lifespan info rarely exclude non-health related causes of death, including it is common. Any artificial deflation of the lifespan affects all breeds. For what it is worth, the Siamese actually have the lowest rate of traffic accident deaths in the study while domestics have the highest(more than 4 times higher). So if anything, including such deaths actually deflates the lifespan of other breeds way more than the Siamese. Like I say earlier, I don't object to giving an upper range for lifespan because, well it is useful. But the median lifespan is just that, the median. Even if it doesn't give the full story, it's still a much more useful piece of information than just how long the longest lived cats can survive.(what does "can live to x years" mean? what % are we talking about?) Maybe we should copy this discussion over to the Siamese talk page and get input from other editors.--Dodo bird (talk) 02:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)