Editing Talk:1950: Chicken Pox and Name Statistics

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I think Randall missed an opportunity to do another “make you feel old” joke here, perhaps something like “if your age isn’t on the chart, your doctors probably still thought chicken pox was caused by imbalanced humors or angry gods” or something. [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 15:24, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't the vaccine note have been placed at age 23, not 28, if the vaccine was introduced in 1995? [[User:Rockcell|Rockcell]] ([[User talk:Rockcell|talk]]) 15:28, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
:When do children get their first smallpox vaccine? If that's around three that might be one explanation for the position of the note. Also the vaccine wasn't only used on children born after its introduction, kids that were already a few years old but never had smallpox could still have gotten their shots. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.229.220|108.162.229.220]] 15:52, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

This isn't *smallpox*. Smallpox was eliminated in the middle of the 20th century, so it's weird if anyone gets it. Also: my understanding is that most people who got smallpox died before they got to be old enough to be on any of those graphs.

I found the top graph very hard to interpret, so I've included my interpretation here for posterity: If you are 35 years old, then you were a young child before the vaccine was introduced and probably 100% of the people you knew as a child got chicken pox. If you are 20-25 years old, there's a 50-50 chance that you got the vaccine and, as a result, about 50% of the people you knew as a child got chicken pox. If you are 10 years old, then you more than likely got the vaccine and have a low probably of getting chicken pox. If you are under 5, you probably don't know many other kids. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.62.39|162.158.62.39]] 17:03, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

: We are so used to reading graphs from left to right that this graph, with the inverse time line (current age) and the introduction of vaccines marked, seems to indicate that everyone had chicken pox after the vaccine was introduced, but that it was fairly rare before that. So this might be a stab at the antivaxx movement as well, and their use of warped statistics. [[User:Torax|Torax]] ([[User talk:Torax|talk]]) 11:36, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Wait, this has nothing to do with confusing correlation with causation, right? The assumption is simply that if most of the kids your age got chicken pox, which is likely if you have certain names, you will consider chicken pox to be normal and common, which seems like a reasonable claim. On the other hand, if the comic hadn't said that, the implication would be that people with certain names cause chicken pox, which would be confusing correlation with causation. -[[Special:Contributions/108.162.219.16|108.162.219.16]] 17:17, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

:I agree, that’s how I interpreted the comic as well [[User:PotatoGod|PotatoGod]] ([[User talk:PotatoGod|talk]]) 18:15, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

:I also agree, if anything this is doing the opposite and assuming no underlying causality between names and chickenpox likelihood, so that the people who get chickenpox at any given time should be distributed randomly amongst all names at prevalent at that time.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.184|162.158.78.184]] 19:06, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

:Basically, what he's describing is a two-step correlation (of which only the second one seems causal to me, but this is debatable). First, your first name and its popularity in particular eras leads to an estimation of your age/year of birth. Second, your year of birth and the prevalence of chicken pox shortly after this year will influence whether you think chicken pox is normal. --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 23:14, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

People with all six of those names probably think "Why do I have no less than six names?" --[[User:IByte|IByte]] ([[User talk:IByte|talk]]) 23:17, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

It would be considerably weirder if we didn't have teeth. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.25.106|172.68.25.106]] 11:39, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I thought the joke was that fewer people who have a rare name get chicken pox than those with a common name, therefore people with said rare name must be resistant. --[[Special:Contributions/172.69.33.167|172.69.33.167]] 12:41, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

I'm 30 and looking at my high school  yearbook there was 1 Logan, 2 Brians, and 5 Sarahs.  None of the other names appear.  That makes the 2nd graph pretty accurate. However, I managed to avoid the chicken pox, so I got the vaccine when I was 12.[[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.40|108.162.237.40]] 15:41, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

There was an opportunity for 'old' names that have come back into common use, like, I dunno, 'Mabel', 'Eva', or 'Emmett', where you're likely to be either below 10 or over 70 years old. What percentage of Mabels  remember polio, for example?[[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.63|162.158.74.63]] 20:59, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

; Logan

Logan becomes less popular at age 30.  Coincidence? --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.10|162.158.126.10]] 19:09, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
: That just means that Logan started getting popular as a name about 30 years ago.  So maybe their parents grew up watching X-Men cartoons on TV in the late 1970's through the 1980's?  [[User:Nutster|Nutster]] ([[User talk:Nutster|talk]]) 20:40, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
:: I’m pretty sure the above was referencing the “Logan’s Run” and “Logan’s World” TV series and books, not X-men.  It was meant as a joke.[[Special:Contributions/162.158.78.16|162.158.78.16]] 04:54, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

; Grammar

OK.  Grammar check now.  How many people actually have all six of these names?  Can't be too many of them.
And is it only men who have this issue?
:Statistically... None. So there's your unique new baby name! [[User:ProphetZarquon|ProphetZarquon]] ([[User talk:ProphetZarquon|talk]]) 22:42, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

If you were to compare the top 1000 'male' and 'female' given (first) names in the USA, you'd see a number of cross-overs (such as Mary on the male list, Robert on the female list). [http://names.mongabay.com Most Common First Names and Last Names in the U.S.] [[User:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For]] ([[User talk:These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For|talk]]) 02:32, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Another grammar check:  I'm struggling to understand "fraction of kids my age".  My age is 41; there are no kids my age, only adults.
: But those people age 41 now where kids around 40 years ago. [[User:LordHorst|LordHorst]] ([[User talk:LordHorst|talk]]) 08:20, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
: Isn't everybody someone's kid? Or is there a distinction between "kid" and "child" in such kind that the former addresses small humans of young age whereas the latter describes people who are descendants from someone else? I always assumed "kid" was just informal (or maybe an American English thing?). I don't know - I'm no native speaker and in German language both is "Kind" [[User:Elektrizikekswerk|Elektrizikekswerk]] ([[User talk:Elektrizikekswerk|talk]]) 11:56, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Another grammar check: the title of the graph is "Fraction of Kids" yet the y-axis intervals are percentages. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.77.152|141.101.77.152]] 08:55, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

; Chickenpox Parties

As a parent with five children born between 1980 and 1988 before the chickenpox vaccine was available, I recall a phenomena called ''Chickenpox Parties''. If you had a preschooler and heard about a neighbor's child who had the chickenpox, you would arrange a playdate with sick child so that your child would catch the disease young and then be ''inoculated'' against catching it later when it was believed to have worse prognosis. Apparently this is no longer in fashion. See this article [https://www.parents.com/health/vaccines/chicken-pox/chickenpox-parties/] So the joke could be rewritten,  "People named 'Sarah' and 'Brian' are more likely to have been invited to a chickenpox party than people named 'Logan' and 'Harper'." P.S. one of my 5 is named Sarah and none are named Logan or Harper. [[User:Rtanenbaum|Rtanenbaum]] ([[User talk:Rtanenbaum|talk]]) 13:44, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

; What's the new disease?

I'm 30, and absolutely everyone I knew eventually caught chickenpox (and then I even caught shingles, as a statistically improbable teenager).  I even have a small scar/blemish from it on my torso.  The idea that it's been practically eliminated is fantastic.  What diseases do parents worry about these days? --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.196|172.68.141.196]] 21:32, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
: A.I.D.S., maybe? *wink* [[Special:Contributions/172.68.143.48|172.68.143.48]] 23:57, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
: Unfortunately too many parents worry about autism from vaccines, despite there being no indication of any risk what so ever. So in some areas these diseases are making a come back. [[User:Torax|Torax]] ([[User talk:Torax|talk]]) 16:12, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
: That's weird. I am 31 and I know litterally no one who had chickenpox. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.93.15|162.158.93.15]] 09:06, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Brian
The babe they called brian
He grew
Grew grew and grew
grew up to be
grew up to be
A boy called brian

A boy called 'Brian'.
He had arms, and legs, and hands, and feet,
This boy, whose name was 'Brian',
And he grew,, grew, grew, and grew,

Grew up to be,
Yes, he grew up to be
A teenager called 'Brian',
A teenager called 'Brian',

And his face became spotty.
Yes, his face became spotty,
And his voice dropped down low
And things started to grow

On young Brian and show
He was certainly no,
No girl named 'Brian',
Not a girl named 'Brian'.

And he started to shave
And have one off the wrist
And want to see girls
And go out and get pissed,

A man called 'Brian',
This man called 'Brian',
The man they called 'Brian',
This man called 'Brian'! [[User:NanoMan2000|NanoMan2000]] ([[User talk:NanoMan2000|talk]]) 15:06, 22 December 2021 (UTC)