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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: net.sci
Subject: Re: Statistics, Smoking, and PSI
Message-ID: <353@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 4-Jul-86 02:27:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: aecom.353
Posted: Fri Jul  4 02:27:25 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Jul-86 04:11:58 EDT
References: <148@cci632.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 33

> 
> One very valid criticism of PSI research is the reliance of raw
> statistics on raw data with little attempt to isolate the factors.
> A similar parallel might be the research on the effects of smoking
> on humans. 
> The trick was simple.  In general, smokers tended to abuse their
> bodies more than non-smokers.  They ate more fats, sugars, cholestoral.
[Misinformation and falsehoods follow]
			- signed by Rex Ballard

In response:
	Before I go around insulting your intelligence, let me just ask
one question, "You were joking weren't you?"
	
	Smoking and health ( or the lack of) is one of the best studied
epidemiological phenomenon known.  It is very robust.  The study you
alluded to: MR-FIT, wasn't designed to test smoking effects on health -
it was designed to test intervention.  It was inconclusive because men
in both groups quit smoking at relatively equal rate -- but within each
group those that quit did better than those that didn't.  The above
misreading of it was taken out in an ad by Phillip-Morris, and the FDA
recently sued them for deceptive advertising (read 'fraud') for 
even suggesting such a thing (it really was a misrepresentation.)
	I hope this is all a misunderstanding and your posting was meant
as satire, but if it wasn't, it really is scraping the bottom of the
barrel of supporting arguments for pseudoscience (psi).


-- 
			      Craig Werner (MD/PhD '91)
				!philabs!aecom!werner
              (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517)
            "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day."