[HN Gopher] Smoking Causes Cancer
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       Smoking Causes Cancer
        
       Author : alexmolas
       Score  : 9 points
       Date   : 2023-12-12 22:18 UTC (41 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.allendowney.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.allendowney.com)
        
       | aldarion wrote:
       | Didn't know that there was anyone arguing it doesn't, but... nice
       | article.
        
         | dekhn wrote:
         | Fisher, one of the great statisticians, argued that
         | insufficient evidence existed to conclude with certainty that
         | smoking causes cancer.
         | 
         | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2000852/
         | 
         | After that, a number of well-designed experiments on rodents
         | demonstrated that smoking _causes_ (strong causation) cancer
         | (in rodents) beyond a reasonable doubt (as in, if you disagree,
         | you 'd better bring some impeccable data).
        
           | alexmolas wrote:
           | Is this Fisher the one that proposed the "p<0.05" rule?
        
             | dekhn wrote:
             | Yes... are you going to criticize him for that?
             | 
             | It's worth reading the whole backstory (start here:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher)
             | 
             | A flawed genius
        
               | alexmolas wrote:
               | No, why should I criticize him for that? Btw, I just
               | learned that he made the Iris dataset famous.
        
       | latchkey wrote:
       | Both my parents are lifelong smokers from their early teens and
       | were a year or two apart in age.
       | 
       | My mom died of lung cancer at 54.
       | 
       | My dad is still going strong at 77 and smokes Camel unfiltered.
       | 
       | Humans are weird.
       | 
       | Regardless, you don't want to die from lung cancer. It is pretty
       | horrible. Your body attacks itself, fluid collects in the lungs,
       | it is painful, and you basically drown from within. Your only
       | option is high doses of morphine and one day you just don't wake
       | up. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
        
         | hinkley wrote:
         | People always talked about how long George Burns survived as a
         | cigar smoker, but luck, genetics and how much you inhale all
         | alter your risk profile. Cigar smokers tend not to inhale, but
         | they still expose their throats and stomachs to all that smoke.
         | Throat cancer sounds terrible.
         | 
         | Camel unfiltered is some sort of statistical anomaly. Hope for
         | those genes.
        
         | mongol wrote:
         | Throat cancer is no fun either. Also associated with smoking.
         | Eventually you can't swallow and basically start starving to
         | death.
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-12 23:00 UTC)