Re: World Health Organization results: Passive Smoking in Childhood Prevents Lung Cancer

On 10 May 2007 14:52:02 GMT, DZ
<23102@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Richard Ulrich <Rich.Ulrich@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I tossed in my comments so that the casual reader would not mistake
your argument as being anything conventional, or anything acceptable
as good science. The evidence just starts with the observational
studies. The case that smoking causes lung cancer is broad and
strong. There is little suggestion that genetics accounts for many
- any? - cases of lung cancer. If your own hypothetical,
*controlled* study of smoking in twins did not show a strong effect
for smoking, it would immediately be distrusted by reasonable
scientists everywhere. Now, if it could identify the *gene*....
There would have to be something biological, and potent as evidence,
to offset all the biological evidence, etc., that already exists
against smoking.

Consider chess playing where practice is known to be important.
Suppose a new study appears claiming that there is a great innate
variation in abilities affecting the degree of success in chess. You
are an equivalent of a critic who says that the study is attempting to
negate the importance of practice.

No, I am not the equivalent of any such critic - as much as
I can figure out that analogy, even overnight.

I am a critic who recognizes that the vast bulk of lung
cancer deaths are properly "attributed to" smoking, with little
doubt. I can recognize that radon causes 10% of the same
sort of lung cancer as smoking does, and that asbestos, etc.,
produce other cancers.

There's an Odds ratio of 5 for smoking and lung cancer.
That seems hard to argue with when most odds ratios for
potential 'intervening factors' -- ones that might account for
the coincidence -- are so much smaller.

--
Rich Ulrich, wpilib@xxxxxxxx
http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html
.

Relevant Pages

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