So apparently, smoking is good for you

http://www.bmj.com/content/313/7062/907

 

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Impressive figures. Though I confess I find something distasteful about commissioning research purely for the purpose of communicating a message to the public. Sounds too much like co-opting science to serve a propaganda objective. But then again, if you are a doctor, what you want is to convince people to change their behaviour.

 

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I dunno, you tell me.... You guys have all the data, and the health organizations have all the proof needed.

By the way, here is a devil's advocate argument: What if smokers make other questionable choices regarding health issues (like drinking and other dangerous behaviour) and that causes them to die earlier, not just because they are smokers???

I would rather take health advice from 100 year old men, then from doctors in their 30s...

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We have. In spades. If you read the responses on this thread.

 

billvon appropriately homed in on Fred Singer & Fred Steitz. See Merchants of Doubt, the Heartland Institute (from smoker's rights to climate denial), and anything about the antics of Fred & Fred. Singer on Climate. Singer's tobacco connection. Singer is/was bankrolled by Heartland, and has served the anti-science propaganda machine notoriously.

billvon's point speaks to the higher issues in play. The libertarian need to overthrow the IRS, while kicked back with a carton of Camels (presumably on a horse, out homesteading on free land) was a salable idea, which found deep pockets in the tobacco and energy lobbies. And the strategy dovetails with the ole-time religious belief that the world is expendable, put here for folks to exploit at their leisure. The same goes for turning your lungs into what resembles overcooked broccoli. And of course all of this appeals mostly to the illiterati (Fraggle's rednecks) who are at ease with attacking whatever they don't understand. Which --- when it's not another culture, race, religion, gender or sexual preference -- reflects on their worst serious clash with the world as kids - Science and Math class.

For the corporations, capturing the mental dwarves of society to serve as their minions happens to work out nicely since the local yokels in towns with names like Muddy Gap or Bell Buckle are less like to know French, much less the business advantages of promoting laissez faire. (That was another unit they flunked out of.)

Today this whole complex of interplay between science/religion and something that pretends to be "American values" is all neatly bundled and sold in one package under the label "Big Government". But before lighting up, be sure to read the warnings.

 

All I have to do is spend one evening in a smoky bar to know it can't be good for me.

 

Bravo! What a masterpiece of cogent polemic. I agree very much, from the safety of the other side of the ocean.

I now predict a rejoinder about "liberals" from our resident expert on hydrogen bonding and entropy. Remember: you read it here first.

 

Heh heh. Don't be resting on your laurels. There's a plane load of American fundamentalists bound for London any day now, fully expecting to convert you guys over their exotic brand of old English Anabaptism. As in this thread, they will not sense the irony.

Indubitably. But before we get to the esoteric mysteries of said chemical phenomena, alas we must endure a litany of tired analogies. After trying to get through that dense persona for about a year, I gave up and put him on ignore. He seems to be talking to himself, a syndrome quite common among Americans afflicted with Right Wing Disease.(Something like hoof and mouth, although here it presents as insertion of the hoof into the mouth.)

 

They've already had a go. This webshite: http://www.c4id.org.uk belongs to a Glasgow-based offshoot of the Seattle Discovery Institute, which as you may know is the principal organisation behind ID. But they only seem to get any traction in bits of the Celtic fringe that go in for extreme Protestantism of the Ian Paisley variety: "Naeiouw Poeipaereigh!" and all that. As usual it is run by doctors and engineers - i.e. by people who think of themselves as scientific, but are actually concerned only with applying in society science's more practical findings.

It's going nowhere, as you can see from the dates of some of the things they are still touting.

 

You created this thread and made the claim in it - it is therefore your responsibility to provide the data to support your claim. But fortunately, Asguard did it for you, proving your claim wrong.

That would have to be controlled for.

Well that's just dumb.

 

Then they wouldn't show lung damage due to inhaling smoke.

Would you rather get your car's brakes fixed by random 100 year old men, rather than mechanics? Would you rather your pilot be a random 100 year old man, rather than a pilot with an ATP rating? After all, if they survived that long, they must do everything right.

 

Again, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." (But if you really believe that, I can list 100 people who have died young of lung cancer.)

Do you smoke?

 

All I claimed that I know of a bunch of old 9and some very old) people who had been smoking for decades and they seemed to live pretty long. Some of the 100 years old credited smoking for their longevity.

And I did provide the data in that link. Now if you haven't got that the whole thread is tongue in cheek (the Ronnie poster was a dead give away) then I don't want you in my comedy club.

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And why wouldn't I listen to a 100 years old? I bet he/she has some experience, unlike the doctors, who also don't live up to the average life expectancy.

 

So how do you explain that one smoker dies of lung cancer at 50 the other lives up to 100? Not to mention non-smokers also die of lung cancer, so it is fair to say, some of the smokers would have died anyway...

Fun fact: 1/3rd of Japanese men are smokers, and still Japanes are 2nd in longevity around the world (first among real countries)

"Similarly in 2012, the adult smoking rate was 22.1%, 33.7% of Japanese men..."

"Nevertheless, nearly 30 million people smoke in Japan, making the country one of the world's larger tobacco markets"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

 

No, and I hate smokers. But apparently smoking is a really slow killer if one can go 6 decades before he dies because of it....

Here is a fun fact: being a doctor is bad for your health. The life expectancy for US males is 77.4 years for males, and the mortality (between 1984-1995) of white doctors was 73 and for black doctors it was 68.7

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11020591

Conclusion: Don't be a doctor, it is bad for you, specially if you are black.

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Random chance. Cancer risk is statistical.

???

Monaco has the highest life expectancy of any country out there. It also has one of the largest gambling incomes per capita of any place in the world. Would sure be silly to claim that therefore gambling enough will make you live a long time.

 

The main point is the sales pitch never reflected the reality of the situation The assumption of the sales pitch assumes the God of chaos floats like a mist and will randomly find you no matter where you hide. The reality is some people are resistant and others are not. But this truth would not make a good sales pitch to manipulate behavior. The liberals respond better to the sales pitch fear than logic.

For example, there are one billion smokers in the world. According to, " Chaos is Lord theory", we should expect a billion early deaths due to smoking alone. Did I worship the God of fear and Chaos properly? This will not occur. We should be looking at those who appear resistant to see the link. But this will be counter productive to the propaganda which depends on blind worship of this atheist god.

I would prefer science say you, you, and you, stay away. But you and you can be moderate and you smoke your brains out since it own't matter. There is no bullies and no scam to regulate and tax innocent people. If someone smokes and lives to the average life expectancy, the scammer should have to give back all the tax he/she paid on smoking since it was based on misrepresentation due to a scam.

The biggest study even conducted, on second hand smoke, used 75,000 women who live with smokers. There was no statistical risk. The scam artists make use of fear with no accountability for scamming the people. I would say the Lord of chaos should also randomly throw these scam artists in jail too and make them pay back any ill gotten gains they achieved because of their scam. As they did to other it shall be done to them.

 

Uh - no.

Because . . . the atheist god doesn't smoke? You seem to have departed the realm of logic.

That's not science; that's magic. Science says "if you smoke, you will on average die ten years sooner." Note the important term "on average." Not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer, COPD or emphysema. However, the odds of you getting those things go up significantly.

Secondhand smoke? We were talking about smoking (first hand smoke.) Sounds like you are confused.

 

isn't a real country. It is a city state. A real country should be bigger than 5 football fields.... In other words, city states shouldn't be brought up in statistical arguments...

So anyhow, my philosophical question is: Why should I prefer a group of people so called experts' (aka doctors) advice who can't even reach average mortality length, over people's opinion who actually made it up to 90 or 100 years???

And how does science explain all those old Italian smokers (valid statistical sample) pushing 90 and happy? Stressless life?

 

You can prefer whatever you like. Get your health advice from senile 100 year old men. Must be some reason they're old. Get your car maintained by a 100 year old woman who eats a lot of yogurt. If she lived that long, she must be great at changing brake pads! Get your investment advice from Lily Safra. She inherited over a billion dollars from her husband when he died. And if she has a lot of money she must give good advice. (BTW she lives in Monaco, too, so she also must be really healthy.)