NPR⁠84%

A microbiologist explains why we age and die ⁠17%

By Regina G. Barber⁠0% Jessica Yung⁠0% Emily Kwong⁠0% Rebecca Ramirez⁠0%

10/29/2024, 12:00:20 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 8 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Loss Aversion, and Ambiguity (Equivocation), with Attempt to Sell a Product or Service as the most egregious example at 23.2% saturation with 39 hits. Analysis detected 162 faulty-reasoning hits from 168 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 32.3% and a BS Rank of ⁠17% (18,328 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 83.70% of the article peer group.

Humans have seen a significant increase in life expectancy over the past 200 years — but not in overall lifespan. 
Nobody on record has lived past 122 years. 
So, for this early Halloween episode, host Regina G. 
Barber asks: Why do we age and why do we die? 
Microbiologist Venki Ramakrishnan explains some of the mechanisms inside of our bodies that contribute to our decay — and tells us if it's possible to intervene in the process. 
Check out Venki Ramakrishnan's book Why We Die. 
Curious about other biology news? 
Email us at shortwave@npr.org and we might cover your topic on a future episode! 
Listen to Short Wave on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave. 
This episode was produced by Jessica Yung and edited by Rebecca Ramirez. 
The facts were checked by Tyler Jones. 
The audio engineer was Kwesi Lee. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.4%Confirmation Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 8.2%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.6%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 4.8%Regina G. Barber: 4.3%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.8%Availability Heuristic4.8%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 8.2%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.8%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 3.9%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.4%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 16.3%Goats and Soda (NPR): 11.1%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 13.1%Regina G. Barber: 1.5%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Loss Aversion13.1%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 3.4%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.1%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 2.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.4%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.3%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 11.3%Negativity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 1.2%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.3%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.1%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 6.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.3%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 4.5%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.8%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 5.2%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.7%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 1.1%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.5%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 1.1%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.2%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 22.0%Regina G. Barber: 7.9%Goats and Soda (NPR): 6.1%Appeal to Authority22.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.5%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.3%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 4.8%Regina G. Barber: 10.3%Goats and Soda (NPR): 4.4%Hasty Generalization4.8%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.6%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.7%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 1.2%Goats and Soda (NPR): 6.6%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.9%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 2.4%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.8%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 8.3%Regina G. Barber: 1.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.4%Burden of Proof8.3%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 5.8%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 1.2%Goats and Soda (NPR): 2.8%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 11.9%Regina G. Barber: 6.2%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.5%Ambiguity (Equivocation)11.9%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.5%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 1.4%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.3%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.9%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 3.8%Goats and Soda (NPR): 3.1%Biased Writer Voice0.0%This article: 8.3%Regina G. Barber: 3.7%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.0%Indoctrination8.3%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 1.1%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Regina G. Barber: 0.0%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 23.2%Regina G. Barber: 10.4%Goats and Soda (NPR): 0.3%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…23.2%

168 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers24%attributed speech128writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 0.0% coverageRegina G. Barber • 11 words • 0.0% coverageVenki Ramakrishnan • 29 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 6 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Venki Ramakrishnan

100%flagged-word coverage
29 attributed words73% of attributed speech70% writer coverage
0%17.5%35.0%Attempt to Sell a Product -30.5 ptsWriter: 30.5%Venki Ramakrishnan: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-10.9 ptsWriter: 10.9%Venki Ramakrishnan: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.