18. Postponing Death An interesting and popular hypothesis is that individuals can temporarily postpone their death to survive a major holiday or important event such as a birthday. In a study of this phenomenon, 6062 deaths were recorded in the week before Thanksgiving, and there were 5938 deaths the week after Thanksgiving (based on data from “Holidays, Birthdays, and Postponement of Cancer Death,” by Young and Hade, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 292, No. 24). If people can postpone their deaths until after Thanksgiving, then the proportion of deaths in the week before should be less than 0.5. Use a 0.05 significance level to test the claim that the proportion of deaths in the week before Thanksgiving is less than 0.5. Based on the result, does there appear to be any indication that people can temporarily postpone their death to survive the Thanksgiving holiday?

13-2 BEYOND THE BASICS