. Despite thegeneral endorsement many people have that “ends do not justifymeans,” people do typically judge that sacrificing the one man bydiverting the train is less morally wrong than sacrificing the manby using his body to stop the train (Foot, 1967; Greene et al.,2001).
How is this 'despite'? It doesn't seem to be in contradiction.
Two statistics about reducing your risk of an early death made headlines around the world recently. The first seems to be a great reason to add a four-legged friend to your life. It suggests that owning a dog is tied to lowering your chance of dying early by nearly a quarter. The second statistic claims that even a minimal amount of running is linked to reducing your risk of premature death by up to 30%. Ruth Alexander finds out what’s behind these numbers and we hear from epidemiologist, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz.
It's amazing that statistics like these... (seemingly without even minimal obvious controls for age etc.) get reported so naively in the media. Note that one of the interviewees suggests one approach that would provide evidence on the impact of pets on longevity ... random dog assignment. He seems to doubt the health benefits; I don't know, it seems plausible to me, but I'd like to see some real evidence.