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From: jc@cdx39.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: soc.misc,soc.women
Subject: Re: Re: Team Sports, an observation
Message-ID: <333@cdx39.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Sep-86 10:19:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: cdx39.333
Posted: Mon Sep 29 10:19:45 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Oct-86 05:35:07 EDT
References: <1127@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU> <3357@umcp-cs.UUCP>
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Xref: linus soc.misc:41 soc.women:176

> >>Does this indicate that athletic women are less likely to develop
> >>breast cancer?  Or is there some more subtle cause of this statistic?
> >
> >Does all of the statistical correlation between smoking and incidence
> >of lung cancer indicate that people who smoke are more likely to get
> >lung cancer?  Or is there some more subtle cause of this statistic?

You've got it backwards.  In reality, tobacco *prevents* lung cancer.
What happens is that people with a predisposition to cancer tend to 
become smokers in self-defence.  If they didn't smoke, they'd die of
cancer even earlier.

Hey, you may think I'm being frivolous, but a couple years ago there
was a paper published (I forget where - anyone out there with Medline
access?) that claimed to show exactly this for the coffee/hypertension
correlation.

Not that reason will prevail in either case.  Most people (including
most medical people, sadly) insist on believing in post hoc reasoning,
regardless of how often statisticians debunk it.

-- 
	John M Chambers 
Phone: 617/364-2000x7304
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Disclaimer:
	Opinions?  What opinions?  Them're all hard facks, buster!