The 27 Club

Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and this week tragically Amy Winehouse, all died at the age of 27. This coincidence has spawned the notion of the 27 Club - a club whose members are influential musicians who died at the age of 27. But is there anything statistically significant about this club? Should musicians fear turning 27?

There are a few things that we should note before starting this investigation:

1. It's quite clear that it is not true to say that more influential musicians die at the age of 27 than at any other age. If this were true, musicians would be dying all the time, and the facts that our radios are filled with golden oldies and John Farnham keeps touring are testament to this. 
2. We will never find enough data to fully test out any theory we come up with. For example, what defines an "influential" musician? One approach might be to scour wikipedia and find the death dates of every artist who had a top ten hit in the last 50 years. I leave this as an exercise for the reader.

What we will do for this article is redefine the club to be for musicians who have died through misadventures with drugs. And what do you know, wikipedia has an article dedicated to just this topic - a list of celebrities who had drug-related deaths. Looking at just the 100 musicians in the list, we get the following distribution for lifespans of musicians who died through drug misadventure.

This distribution has an average of 36, a median of 34 and a mode of 28. All pretty close to 27. Maybe there's more to this than we thought. This can be compared to Australian Bureau of Statistics data for Australian males between 2007 and 2009. It's clear that musicians who have drug-related deaths are dying at a much younger age than Australian males. Note the caveat here, the musicians aren't dying of old age - these are only musicians who have drug-related deaths.


It's easy enough to come up with a theory for this. Musicians - indeed society at large - are most likely to start being exposed to drugs at the age of 20. In any case, before this time there aren't many musicians popular enough to have a wikipedia page or a public influence strong enough to be accepted into the 27-Club. The number of deaths seems to drop off after about the age of 40, but this is not because they are all becoming family oriented and leading a clean life. The number drops because there are less musicians alive at 40 to die. This is the same explanation for why less people in the general population die at the age of 95 than do at 80 - not that many people live long enough to die at 95.

The following chart displays the probability of dying within the next five years given that you have survived to now. For example, if you are currently in the 60-64 year age range, this chart shows the probability of dying in the 65-69 year age range. For musicians who have drug-related deaths, between the ages of 20 and 65, the chance of dying in the next 5 years is between 25-50%. Within the noise of the small sample set, its about the same for each 5 year category between 20 and 65, perhaps increasing slightly with age. This suggests that for influential musicians, if they are going to die through drug use, they have roughly the same chance of dying within the next 5 years no matter how old they currently are, perhaps a little higher if they're older. The probability of death doesn't peak at 27, and conversely, just because you have survived till now doesn't mean you have a greater chance of surviving the next five years. This is similar to the distribution of cricket batting scores, for those interested.

The peak at 25-29 in the previous chart occurs only because the musicians have not died before that age and suggests there is nothing supernatural about the number 27 (despite the curse of 27). Note that for Australian males, the data stops at 100 so the 100+ bar represents dying above this age. For the musicians, the data stops at 70-74, hence its peak at 100%.




Note again that this analysis is for musicians who die drug related deaths. It doesn't suggest that musicians have shorter lifespans than the average Australian male - it does however suggest that musicians who die via drugs have shorter lifespans. This could be because if you are going to die a drug-related death you are likely to die young because taking drugs is a risky endeavour, or it could be because by the age of 75 you have probably stopped doing drugs and so your death doesn't appear in the chart.

So is there anything to the 27 club? Not really. We've shown (albeit with just one rather incomplete article on wikipedia) there is nothing magical about the age of 27 - indeed 28 seems more interesting - and the peak in drug-related deaths around this age is quite predictable. Far more musicians die at an older age of other causes just like the rest of us, and somehow Keith Richards is still alive. The club exists because humans like to associate meaning to patterns. We're very good at pattern recognition. Our ability to associate the seasons with animal migrations, and the stars in the sky with when to plant vegetables, gave us an advantage throughout evolution. However, false pattern recognition doesn't get us killed and so we often spot patterns where they don't exist - for example, we see faces in the World Trade Center disaster, or the Virgin Mary at the beach. Some even believe that because of this, we have created religion to explain patterns we can't explain.

A nod here to the like-minded Bespoke Blog and its article Morbid Statistics & The 27 Club which I found quite coincidentally as I was finishing up this article. 

The Cloning Debate - Part 2

A few weeks back, I republished an article I wrote in 2001, in which I asked a number of prominent Australians their views on cloning.

I have attempted to re-contact these same people to see whether or not their opinions have changed during these 5 years. I am pleased to have received 3 replies so far, although a few of my initial contacts have proved very hard to find, or have move out of the field (Prof. Alan Trouson). Their opinions have been very interesting. I intend to take a closer look at some of these ideas in the near future - especially the views from Clonaid, who I will interview, probably in early 2007.

Dr Paul Willis
One of Australia's leading science communicators, ABC Catalyst and radio Presenter, PhD in Palaeontology

I would say that my position has modified somewhat over the last 5 years. Therapeutic Cloning (TC) does offer the potential for cures to some pretty horrible diseases and, as such, ought to be pursued to see what it can really do. This should proceed at a research level. Once we know the true abilities of TC for various diseases, then we will be better placed to consider their implementation across society. But I am still concerned that we are looking at expensive medical treatments that will only really benefit a few, relatively rich people in the world. This particularly comes into focus when some of the more frivolous potential applications for TC are put on the table. Do we really need to spend billions learning how to make ego-copies of ourselves or developing complicated ways to avoid aging when that money could be more wisely spent saving many lives with much simpler, already proven medical technologies, treatments and basic public hygiene? This is an ethical problem with TC that is often ignored but should, in my view, be ahead of the more popular ethical issues such as embryonic destruction (which I think is a non-issue anyway because the embryos are destined for destruction anyway) or cross-species technologies (again, a non issue if there is no genetic material transfer between species).

Thomas Kaenzig
Vice President, Operations
Clonaid
www.clonaid.com

More and more people understand the benefits of the human cloning technology. Being in favor of therapeutic human cloning has already become "mainstream" today and the same thing will happen soon with reproductive human cloning. The ridiculous "ethics" argument brought up by opponents to human cloning is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism, through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and new technologies.
Luckily, nothing can stop science ....


Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja
Science and Research Portfolio, Australian Democrats

From her speech on the Prohibition of Human Cloning For Reproduction and the Regulation of Human Embryo Research Amendement Bill 2006 - Reproduced in part here after discussions with the Senator's office

I am a strong supporter of this technology (therapeutic cloning), in particular somatic cell nuclear transfer... Scientific endeavour has been an enduring area of interest to me. I have been particularly concerned with finding an appropriate balance between allowing the cutting-edge research and technology that we have to prosper and needing to protect our community through effective regulation of scientific activity...You need to understand how science progresses. It doesn't progress with a single step that means that you suddenly have cures. It moves incrementally towards a goal, and you gradually put in place bits of the jigsaw and solve various technical problems that are required... Those people who think that there is no moral problem with embryo research should be allowed to carry out that research and should not be prevented from doing so by the power of the law. Those people who think the research is wrong should be allowed to say so and to protest against what they believe to be wrong. And those who do not wish to participate in the treatments that arise from stem cell research should be allowed to avoid such treatments... Whether or not this technology will be progressed is beyond dispute. And if it does not happen here, it will happen elsewhere. Unless opponents are suggesting that we ban all imports of therapies derived using somatic cell nuclear transfer then Australians may well ultimately benefit from this technology, regardless of what happens here. But do we not want to be part of this? Do we not want invest in the potential and the hope that it presents us with? At stake is whether or not we want our research community to play the role that they are able to in this. If we allow this bill to pass, we can ensure that Australians benefit not only from the outcome but from the knowledge that is gained in the process and the increased speed with which progress may come about if Australias innovative prowess is allowed to be brought to bear on this challenge.

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Rebirth of the cloning debate

The issue of human cloning is one that has been with us for some time.

Recently in Australia, a bill which would allow scientists to clone embryos to extract their stem cells for medical research has passed through the Senate and now awaits a lower house decision.

With this in mind, I have dug up an article I wrote for The Helix magazine in 2001 (editor Darren Osbourne). In this article I asked a number of prominent Australian's about their opinions on cloning, for some very interesting answers. I have attempted to track down these same people 5 years on to see whether or not their opinions have changed, and have had a couple of responses, so stay tuned for the 2006 results.

Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja
Leader of the Australian Democrats in 2001

Cloning is no longer about whether it will be done but when it will be done. It is time to start sorting out the boundaries of what our community deems acceptable—or unacceptable, as the case may be. Cloning has a role to play in many possible medical treatments, either as a therapy or as a diagnostic. The paramount requirement from legislators in the immediate future will be to ensure the new cornucopia of genetic tools is used only for our benefit and not to unfairly discriminate.

Senator Bob Brown
Australian Greens Senator for Tasmania and leader of the Greens party

Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob – isn’t cloning boring? Nature has sorted all our genes and we re-arrange this ecological prescription at the peril of losing diversity and ecological robustness. The Precautionary Principle should, at least, apply.

Jean-Francois Aymonier
Spokesperson for Clonaid, a company aiming to be the first Human Cloning Company www.clonaid.com

Cloning frightens a lot of people. Especially the people who believe in God. Because if we succeed in cloning a human being, it proves that we can create life scientifically and God might not exist after all. That God doesn't exist is very hard to accept for those who have always believed in God. They don't want to be proven wrong so for them it is important to stop scientists from cloning. That is why they try to frighten us by imagining many terrible things that could be done with cloning. But cloning can also be used very positively. We Raelians at Clonaid think that a long time ago extra-terrestrial beings created life on earth scientifically thanks to cloning techniques. The first humans they created were clones. So cloning is a wonderful thing since we are all here thanks to cloning. Not only cloning will help cure many diseases but it will also make us understand how to create life and become eternal using different bodies or body parts. And one day it will be our turn to create life on another planet. That's why cloning is so fantastic.

Adam Spencer
Then Triple J Morning Presenter, Comedian and Science Communicator

One of the most disturbing aspects of the cloning debate is that again science has arrived at the ability to do something well before society has decided where it stands on the issue. This is happening more and more as the rate of discovery is increasing in so many controversial fields. It is so important that we start discussing the morality of this sort of research as soon as someone suggests that "perhaps one day we could do..." rather than wait until the press conference where it is announced "well we've got a few in the lab now if you want to come and have a look!” Hopefully we will all learn from this, we have to make our feelings known on the big issues, earlier not later.

Associate Professor Catharine Lumby
Director of the Media and Communications Program at the University of Sydney, Journalist and Author

There is understandable public anxiety over the issue of cloning. I believe there are two reasons for this. Firstly, we live in a society where the speed of technological advances far outstrips our capacity to absorb their implications, let alone debate them in a considered manner. Secondly, cloning touches on an ancient philosophical conundrum - the relationship between the original and the copy. Plato expresses a concern that representations of real objects, if they are too exact, might be mistaken for the real thing - that images or copies have the capacity to trick the viewer. A similar kind of anxiety grounds the taboo in some religious orders against making likenesses of God (icons). A clone is essentially a perfect copy. The fear then arises that there will be no way of telling the original from its copy (or the human from its clone).

Professor Alan Trounson
World Leader in Reproductive Technology
Centre for Early Human Development, Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development

Cloning human people is not ethical because of the risks of deformities to babies and problems for mothers during pregnancy. We know this from our studies on cloning Dolly the sheep and many other animals. We are studying cloning of animals to try and understand what goes wrong and to see if we can correct this. If we are successful we may be able to use cloning for cows to produce more milk, milk that is better for little kids in poor countries and cheap medicine to help sick people all over the world.

Dr Paul Willis
ABC Catalyst and radio Presenter, PhD in Palaeontology

I think that we all need to take stock of the context in which cloning is proposed. It's all very impressive to be able to clone people, sheep or cattle but do we really need to? The biggest problem this planet faces is too many people so why exacerbate the problem by producing more? Further, the only people who will be able to afford cloning will be the rich who are also the worst offenders for wasting the resources of the earth. Producing more of them only makes matters worse. I really have no opinion on the ethics of cloning and can see arguments for both sides, but I think that the wider context of cloning is emphatic; we don't need more people no matter how we want to make them.

Dr Graham Phillips
Then ABC Catalyst Presenter, author and PhD in Astrophysics

I'm in favour of therapeutic cloning - creating cloned embryos that might one day allow replacement livers and kidneys for people. I know there are serious ethical problems with creating embryos purely for medical purposes, but I think there are even more serious problems by not doing this. In effect this means sentencing people who need the new organs to earlier deaths. As far as the other sort of cloning goes - creating cloned adults - I guess my attitude is it will eventually happen and it will turn out to be not such a problem. After all, biologically, a clone is just an identical twin. But I don't think we should be attempting to create adult clones any time soon - the techniques are simply not safe enough yet.

Brian Alexander
Then Journalist for US Magazine Wired – www.wired.com

The subject of human cloning has occupied the better part of one year of my life. In the process of researching and discussing human cloning for the U.S. magazine Wired, I have met a number of very interesting people, including scientists who say they would like to help clone a human being, people who would like to be cloned, and people who feel strongly that nobody should ever be cloned. After all this time, I have come to the following conclusion: human reproductive cloning does not really matter. Someday soon, the issue of whether cloning is safe will go away. Then, there will be a human clone. And that clone will be, simply, a baby. The world will not change. There will be no "Brave New World," no sci-fi mass-produced human beings. A very few people, probably men and women who cannot have a baby any other way, may choose to clone to have a genetically related child. Hardly anybody else will ever want to have children this way. The one lesson I think we can take away from the controversy is that we need to look at science in realistic ways, not as if we all lived in a movie.

Farewell Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin, probably one of the best known advocates for wilderness and animal conservation in the world, tragically passed away recently in North Queensland, Australia. He was arguably Australia’s best-known science communicator, although he was more popular overseas, particularly in America, than he was at home. His unconventional methods of communicating his work – some say he provoked animals to get them to attack on camera in order to bring viewers to his Crocodile Hunter television series – drew criticism from some and inspired others, yet it is unarguable that Irwin will have a lasting effect on the environmental and conservation movements in Australia and around the world.

Unlike so many other “wacky and zany” science communicators – and there are plenty of them in Australia – Irwin was so genuinely passionate about his cause that he bought millions of dollars of land worldwide in the name of wilderness and animal conservation. How many people can you name that have become famous to some degree through their television persona that have taken the next step and invested a large percentage of their rewards in their cause? I can barely think of one other. And nothing he ever did on screen was fake – he loved what he did and this shone through in everything that he did – whether it was on his television show, in interviews or just when he was being himself. He was genuinely passionate about what he did and was not afraid put his money where his mouth was. Personally, I admire his passion and wish that I had had the chance to meet him.

I must admit my viewpoint here is slightly informed by having met other well-known science communicators in Australia who bank on their personality rather than their in-depth knowledge of science – even Irwin admits he was not the smartest bloke around – who off-camera are still “wacky and zany” but are in no way nearly as passionate about their cause as Irwin was. I can not imagine Irwin fobbing off a young person passionate about conservation by saying “its all too hard to get into this industry”, which has happened to me more than once with high profile communicators. Indeed, Irwin employed over 500 people at the amazing Australia Zoo (which I visited this year) and was constantly encouraging people to take up his cause in whatever way they could. He never said it was all too hard.

His belief was that in order to educate, you need to get people excited. The following quote is from an interview he did with Scientific American:

I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push an educational message. That's the main aim in our entire lives is to promote education about wildlife and wilderness areas, save habitats, save endangered species, etc. So, if we can get people excited about animals, then by crikey, it makes it a heck of a lot easier to save them.

Some say that he deliberately provoked animals into attacking him to make good TV. I have not analysed his whole body of work, so it is probably not for me to comment. But in any case, David Attenborough gets chased by elephant seals and does not have to say “Don’t try this at home”. The reason Irwin was popular was not because he made animals attack (if that’s what actually happened), it is because he got into people’s hearts and minds. Australian’s sometimes did not like the cultural cringe that came with him, but who cares?! He was funny, passionate, called great ugly crocodiles “beautiful sheilas” and inspired millions of people world wide to take an interest in animal habitat conservation. It takes all kinds of communicators to effectively convey science to the public, and Irwin fantastically fitted his section.

Indeed, a lady from Brisbane was able to save her son from a snakebite because of what they had watched on his show – now that’s effective science communication!

And finally, I would like to also make mention that the RSPCA in Brisbane called him a modern day Noah because of his conservation work. “His loss will be felt by animal lovers not just in Australia but all over the world”, said RSPCA Qld chief executive Mark Townend. RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty, who first worked with Irwin when Irwin was just 15, said Mr Irwin's contribution to society would only truly be recognised in the years ahead.

“He put his money where his mouth was”, Mr Beatty said. “Other people talked about it, Steve did it.”

If there is any organisation in the world qualified to comment on whether Irwin’s methods were cruel to animals and whether he became popular through less than noble means, it would be the RSPCA. Yet they are calling him a modern day Noah. I hope that into the future we realise Irwin’s legacy and pay tribute to a man who, although he didn’t appeal to everyone, has made a tremendous difference to the environmental and conservation causes around the world. My deep sympathies also for his family, as his other passion was clearly for them. His is truly a tragic loss.

It is not the critic who counts - not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood… Who strives valiantly… who errs and comes short again and again… who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause - and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt’s "Man in the Arena" Speech (April 23, 1910)

See the Enough Rope interview with Steve Irwin

Listen to this show here

Thank God for Camera Phones

This post is a follow-up to a couple of the stories we have recently run on Mr Science. This week, I have had the good fortune to meet a couple of superstars, directly related to our Mr Science topics.

We have done a couple of stories in the past on the science of music:

1. Can scientists predict your music taste, and
2. Music and Science on the brain

I was fortunate this week to meet one of my all-time favourite artists, Ben Folds, after his concert with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. I also managed to make a fool of myself in front of his wife, by commenting to my friend Laura, "You dressed up for Foldsie", and then when Mrs Folds, who was in front of us in the line, turned around, Laura said "Are you a Foldsie too?" meaning something like "Is your name also Folds?", whilst I exchanged smiles with her friend, who I thought at the time maybe liked me, but was clearly smiling at my stupidity. Then when we looked around from our seats a bit later, we commented when looking at the best seats, "That's where Ben Folds would seat his family, where Foldsie is sitting." It then sunk in that Foldsie was actually Frally Hynes, wife of Ben Folds and subject of many songs. Good one Marc.

We recently did a story on the science of soccer, and this week I had the fortune to meet the highest profile football player playing in Australia of recent years, and all-time great, Dwight Yorke. When a group of us wandered over to the local field for a game of soccer at lunch time, this big black 4WD pulled up, the window wound down, and the driver said, "Can we have a kick around with you, its your chance to play with a superstar." We were all thinking, "Who is this guy", until we looked passed him to the passenger seat, to see the diamond ear ring and gleaming white teeth of Dwight Yorke. When the 4WD finally returned, Dwight had changed into his sporting gear, and was accompanied by two lovely ladies and a minder, who went off to buy him prawns and whatever else he wanted. Dwight turned out to be a great guy just wanting to have a kick around before his long-hall flight back to English football.

Thank goodness for camera phones, otherwise I'd have no proof of these celebrity encounters (I have now got myself one too - these were taken by others - thanks to one of Dwight's lady friends, and to Laura's mum).