Where is this "Science" anyway?

[WinstonSmith]

Since the late 1800's, humans have witnessed the introduction of the telephone, electric power and lighting, the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, space travel, nuclear bombs, a cure for polio, the computer, etc, etc.

That's impressive. That's some science.

The other day I read that there is now a promising device, a gun of sorts, that can use stem cells to create a spray that, over time, will completely heal horrendous burns. If that device really works, I think there should be a parade or a holiday or something, as well as a well-deserved Nobel Prize for Medicine.

I'm kind of skeptical, though. Undoubtedly, there have been advances in medicine in the past couple of decades. For example, surgeries that once involved a lot of cutting and bleeding can often be done now with small incisions and arthroscopic devices.

In terms of pharmaceuticals, we now have pills that can lower our blood cholesterol, but there are many people who claim that blood cholesterol levels really have little to do with the risk of cardiovascular death and/or disease. We have anti-depressant drugs, but a recent study indicates that these drugs are no more effective than a placebo.

Meanwhile, information technology improves so quickly that it's nearly impossible to purchase a computer that won't be outdated in a year's time. Communication technology. which is largely tied to information technology, keeps improving as well. And, you keep getting more and more for less and less cost.

Other than that, what? We've got flat screen High Definition TVs. Fine. Wonderful. What else?

In terms of space exploration, NASA is still using the same space shuttles from the eighties that were originally conceived of during the Nixon administration. At the same time, an entirely private effort has achieved space flight in only the past few years.

Great advancements have been made regarding AIDS, and cure may not be far away. But AIDS has only been in the public consciousness for about 25 years or so. While it's certainly a significant scientific accomplishment, it isn't the equivalent of putting a man on the moon, or splitting the atom. These accomplishments represented answers to ancient questions, in which all of humanity had an active and immediate interest.

While there have been tremendous improvements on existing technology, mostly from the twentieth century, it seems to me that there really isn't any entirely new innovation. Cure for cancer? Nope. Efficient, clean energy? Nope. Interstellar travel? Nope.

If we do eventually get these things, they'll likely have more to do with information technology than they will applied innovations in medicine or energy. In other words, the improvements in information technology will make these improvements and innovations possible. So, there won't be some brilliant doctor of physicist or engineer who will be able to take singular credit as being the new Edison. Rather, information technology will simply continue to improve to a point that the many people clamoring for these answers will exploit the available technology to put together the pieces they couldn't put together before the technology existed. You won't see some person holding up a test tube announcing to the world that he or she has found the cure for cancer. Rather, a series of advancements involving many people over many years will just make cancer less of a concern. If a cure is found at all, the cure will occur incrementally.

It occurs to me that what science has lost in all of this is surface appeal. Our society worships celebrity to the point that people who have done absolutely nothing have become prominent celebrities. This year, a successful movie was made about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg, and Time Magazine proclaimed him to be "The Person of the Year". Meanwhile, there really isn't anything much more significant about Facebook than there is about this forum. It's just a place on the internet for people to gather and, for the most part, people just make small talk. No one really seems to open up a heavy topic for discussion. People just post links and the pictures that portray their lives as being shiny and happy.

The movie about Mark Zuckerberg, called "The Social Network" is a good film, but it's not a great film. It's a very overrated film, in my opinion. After watching it, I found myself troubled, first, by the fact that our culture now celebrates what, in reality, is just another somewhat good movie as some kind of masterpiece. I was troubled,second, by the fact that the subject of the film hadn't really done anything except create a popular meme. Facebook is popular, and that's about it. It's not user friendly. The search features, frankly, stink--if you want to reconnect with the Frank Jones you knew in college, you better know the exact locality he lives in, unless you want to scroll through ten thousand profile pictures. Facebook recently asked users if they want to update to a new format, then, regardless of the response, forced users to switch to a new format that looks exactly like the old format, except for the fact that a user now doesn't know where anything is. There really isn't anything technologically innovative about Facebook. As far as I can tell, it's just popular, and that's about it.

It seems to me that our current world is advancing in design, but not in innovation. Everything that we've already had for many years is getting better, sleeker, and faster. But there's little or nothing truly new. Meanwhile, our craving for sexy attraction continues.

So, danger is always sexy. Rather than boldly going forward with science, science has now become a convenient tool for our society to become ever more insular and paranoid. Rather than enjoying the fact that we live in the best society that has probably ever existed, we now burn our collective energy on debating about phantom menaces. You want Utopia? You're living in it. Our world is so wonderful and advanced that the only thing that stands between true enjoyment and advancement is distracting so much energy into manufactured controversies. For instance, I can't possibly believe that even bringing up the topic of "global warming" has resulted in greater benefits than the tremendous distraction caused by having to debate the topic in the first place. Forget melting glaciers and encroaching coastlines. What about the billions of man-hours of human potential that have been wasted over the years? If we could see the true cost, the debate over global warming has likely been more destructive than even the worst-case-scenarios of the doomsayers. We didn't need warnings about the destruction of global warming; we needed warnings about the destruction caused by the debate over global warming.

As far as I can tell, science is now in a historical coma. Frustrated by the hard work and difficulty of great possibility, our practitioners of science have now turned to scrutinizing minutiae, because politicians feed them like a jealous and possessive lover pays a private investigator to follow their spouse around. Everything that anyone does will cause themselves or someone else some kind of harm, so the result is that no one feels safe to even move. No one will be able to even negotiate their day to day life without a feeling of insecurity.

This sense of insecurity will create a welcoming demand for authority. As more and more people feel that, no matter how much they try, they won't be able to do what they're told is right, and the more they'll want something powerful and definitive to guide them. So, authority will take over with an iron fist.

So, while our time on Earth and history passes us by, we're told that we should all gather around the fire to celebrate people who find new and innovative ways to waste our time worrying about nothing. And that's what institutional science now does. It doesn't accomplish things anymore, but makes up any reason it can find to make us feel bad and worry about what we've accomplished.

There. I got carried away and posted something too long in The Tavern again.

[cricket]

I'll post something short. I agree, in many ways. Man is a problem-solving animal, and you can't change that. If we have no obstacles, we are nothing. The day we solve the last problem, resolve the last conflict, and remove the last obstacle is the day we cease to exist. Our biggest problem today is that we have no longer have big problems, so we're left with scurrying around, trying to fix things that aren't broken.

Antis are worried about things like second and third-hand smoke simply because they don't have better things to worry about - that's all.

[WinstonSmith]

Well, Cricket, I'm relieved to see you found the point in that post. Definitely another rambler where I don't tie my points together very well. Oh well. I felt like writing something in here for old time's sake. But definitely not my best work.

[WinstonSmith]

"Man is a problem-solving animal, and you can't change that...Our biggest problem today is that we have no longer have big problems, so we're left with scurrying around, trying to fix things that aren't broken."

Yeah, that's where I was going.

What I find especially frustrating is that we live in a time that could be truly "progressive". Somehow though, society has become introspective to a point that isn't productive or forward-looking, but obsessive and paranoiac. While even one of America's most politically progressive presidents, FDR, once said that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself", we are now encouraged to live in precisely the opposite way.

Rather than getting busy with constructive enterprise, society now spends its time like an obsessive compulsive who, once the house is clean, decides that there might deadly microbes dwelling in secret corners.

I made a detour on that initial post about Facebook without explaining it very well. I use Facebook, and there isn't anything wrong with Facebook for what it is. At the same time, I have to say that the societal celebration of the site that's taken place in the past year seems unwarranted. I'm not aware of any great or world-changing project coming out of Facebook yet, thought I won't doubt that such potential exists. Rather, as far as I can tell, so far Facebook appears to be a collective exercise in naval gazing--"Here's what's what lint I've collected in my naval; tell me what you've collected in yours? Bad day at work? Cat or baby pictures? Please share!"

I don't mean to be too harsh. Facebook is wonderful, for example, for finding out what people with topics of interest to FORCES have going on. Facebook is good, not bad. And, yes, I smile at the cat and baby pictures. Facebook isn't at all the problem; but the current cultural overreaction to it is. In my estimation, Amazon and, certainly, Google were much greater internet accomplishments with more meaningful societal and cultural impact.

The counter point may be that other things were going on in previous years, so while Google may be a greater accomplishment, Google didn't happen this year, and wasn't in the right place at the right time. That counter point is part of my entire point; all of the boats are lowering with the tide and it appears to me that we're celebrating continuously lesser achievements and accomplishments.

At the same time, so many are entirely preoccupied with trying to convince us that the world is more of a dangerous place, when precisely the opposite is the case. Only people living in paradise can afford to bicker over who's getting more quality time on the beach. Yes, problems still exist, but we seem to be contributing to the problem by celebrating wasting our time and chasing phantoms than trying to do something constructive about those problems.

[gary k]

"so many are entirely preoccupied with trying to convince us that the world is more of a dangerous place, when precisely the opposite is the case."

Indeed, such as the claim that smoking 'causes' lung cancer and all smokers could die frpm lung cancer.

It just depends upon how one states the numbers. Problems and scares only exist if you insist upon seeing them that way!

Antis claim that smoking 'causes' lung cancer; but, for every 100 never-smokers that do NOT die from lung cancer, in any given year, there are 99.95 current smokers that do NOT die from lung cancer.Here is how it works.

There are about 46 million current smokers and every year 32,814 of them will die from lung cancer.

That is a death rate of 7/10,000 and means that 9,993/10,000 will NOT die.

Never-smokers are about 136 million and 28,260 will die every year from lung cancer.

That is a death rate of 2/10,000 and means that 9,998/10,000 will NOT die.

Since 9,993 is 99.95% of 9,998, for every 100 never-smokers that do NOT die from lung cancer there will be 99.95 current smokers that will NOT die from lung cancer.

[WinstonSmith]

"There are about 46 million current smokers and every year 32,814 of them will die from lung cancer."

"Never-smokers are about 136 million and 28,260 will die every year from lung cancer."

Gary, it's safe to say, according to all known methods of data collection, that approximately 160,000 people will die this year or last year or next year, of lung cancer. Of those, about 10%, or 16,000 will be non-smokers.

while the ALA and others have attempted to bloat these statistics in recent years, you've actually managed to reduce the overall mortality numbers to nearly one third from even previous realistic numbers!

Also, according to the very numbers you provide, as quoted above, smokers are much more likely to die of lung cancer than non-smokers.

There's no way to do math to make more less, or less more.

[gary k]

Dear Winston,

There are three(3) groups of people dying from lung cancer and those 3 groups are current smokers, ex-smokers, and never-smokers.

I have compared two of those groups, current(active) smokers and never-smokers because ex-smokers are different from current smokers for for a number of reasons.

Here: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5644a2.htm Table 2

The CDC lists the percentages of adults(current smokers,ex-smokers, and never-smokers) that have lung cancer. Please bear in mind that most all people that have lung cancer will die from it.

The CDC says that 20.9% of the adults with lung cancer are current smokers, 61% are ex-smokers and 18% are never-smokers.

Here:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5745a3.htm
The CDC data shows that there are about 156,899(157,000) lung cancer deaths every year.

Current smokers at 20.9% of the 157,000 are the 32,814 lung cancer deaths I mentioned.

Never-smokers at 18% of the 157,000 are the 28,260 lung cancer deaths I mentioned.

Ex-smokers at 61% of the 157,000 are a different group of 95,770 lung cancer deaths.

The second link shows that the CDC lists 125,522 lung cancer deaths as being smoking attributed mortality(SAM) and that is 80% of the 156,899 lung cancer deaths.

Now, the American Cancer Society(and other groups) do indeed claim that smokers are 15-23 times as likely to die from lung cancer as never-smokers. They also give a risk ratio for ex-smokers as a separate group.

For that claim to be true, they must show that there are 15-23 current smokers dying from lung cancer for every one never-smoker that dies from lung cancer.

Using CDC data, we have shown that the current smoker lung cancer death rate is 7/10,000 and the never-smoker death rate from lung cancer is 2/10,000.

That is a ratio of 3.5 to 1 and is a looonnnng ways from the claimed 15-23 to 1!!!!!

If you compare 10,000 never-smokers to 10,000 current smokers, you find that current smokers are ONLY 5/10,000 more likely to die from lung cancer in any given year.

That is ONLY 5/100th of 1% more likely to die from lung cancer and ONLY 5/100th of 1% less likely to die from lung cancer in any given year!!!!

[gary k]

Ahhh Winston,

You deleted your post of the 25th before I had a chance to reply to the darn thing.

[WinstonSmith]

Sorry, Gary. I deleted it at work today because I noticed that the formatting was all screwed up. I just wanted to correct that and re-post.

"The CDC says that 20.9% of the adults with lung cancer are current smokers..."

No, it doesn't. The CDC only says that the cigarette smoking rate in 2004 was 20.9%.

"The prevalence of cigarette smoking remained relatively unchanged during the early 1990s but gradually decreased from 1997 (24.7%) to 2004 (20.9%)."

This is the only mention of a percentage of 20.9 in the article you linked. It says nothing about what percentage of people with lung cancer are current smokers, or, for that matter, what percentage of lung cancer deaths occurred in current smokers.

You can't assume that because 20.9% of all people smoked that this then accounts for 20.9% of all lung cancers, or lung cancer deaths.

"Never-smokers at 18% of the 157,000 are the 28,260 lung cancer deaths I mentioned.

"Ex-smokers at 61% of the 157,000 are a different group of 95,770 lung cancer deaths."

I can't even find these percentages anywhere in the links you provided.

Gary, here's the safe operating principle:

Somewhere around 10% of current or former smokers will get ever lung cancer, at an average age of about 70 years.

Of those diagnosed with lung cancer in any given year, about 10% will be lifelong non-smokers.

While only 10% of smokers ever get lung cancer, this accounts for about 90% of lung cancer deaths in any given year.

That's the safe operating principle.

Also, increasing lifespans mean that, almost by definition, more people will die of lung cancer, though at an advanced age.

Now that I've said that, I will provide the disclaimer that the now powerful political and institutional interest of anti-smoking is working to distort the true numbers. For instance, whatever the actual overall lung cancer mortality in a given year, anti-smoking interests will either increase or decrease these numbers depending on what group it is, and what their motivation is. In other words, they suit their argument according to their needs of the moment. If they want to show that they've made progress, the bad numbers go down. If they want to create fear and there's a need for more funding, the numbers go up.

They exploit apathy and our current 24-hour-drive-by news cycle to make us forget what we learned yesterday in favor of what we learn today. Then, what we learned today will be forgotten tomorrow. It's the horrible symptom of the disease that has taken over our culture, and propagandists now believe that any distinction between this disease and anything resembling the truth is something arbitrary, absent of any meaning at all. They think there is no distinction because they belive that truth is something that is manufactured in the first place. So, the ends justify the means, and these people think to themselves: "What difference does it make if virtually no one has died from secondhand smoke? The important thing is that smokers stop smoking!"

I guess what I'm saying is that I have never understood the desire or need to "defend smoking", or try to create facts to suit my feelings because I want to justify anything. I think that truth is the best defense against lies, and that's it. There is no trick, or counter-intuitive mathematical figuring that can be done to statistically demonstrate that smoking is good for people's overall longevity. While Nightlight's posts have provided me with insight, he loses me entirely in discussing glutathione and chemical and biological interactions. I have no desire to degrade Nightlight's contributions To the contrary, I'm grateful for them. However, I don't believe at all that all of the people who have latched on to and praised his ideas have a clue what he's talking about.

We're all entitled to our own opinions, but we're not entitled to make up our own facts.

[gary k]

Dear Winston,

What part of this could you not understand?
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5644a2.htm

Table 2:
Estimated age adjusted prevalence of current smokers, former smokers, and never-smokers among US adults aged 18 and over by chronic disease status-National Health Interview Survey, United States, 2006.

Malignant Neoplasms:
Lung...current smokers= 20.9%.....former smokers=61.2%,,,,,never smokers= 17.9%

Since those that have lung cancer will almost always die from that lung cancer, I feel rather confident in saying that current smokers will account for 20.9% of the yearly lung cancer deaths and never-smokers will account for about 18% of the yearly lung cancer deaths.

[gary k]

Dear Winston,

With all due respect, your use of the term 'non-smokers' could be mis-leading as ex-smokers could be considered as 'non-smokers'.

[gary k]

Current smokers' Lifetime death rate from lung cancer is 1/100.

99% of current smokers will NOT die from lung cancer over the course of their lifetimes.

Current smoker LCD's and LCD Rate by age group and Lifetime Total per 10,000

Age group.................LCD's(20.9%).......Population.................LCD Rate

18-34 ..................... 0................... 18 million .............. 0/10,000

35-44...................... 660.................. 9.5 million ............. 0.7/10,000

45-54...................... 2,640 ...............8.4 million .............3/10,000

55-64 .................... 6,600................. 3.8 million.............17/10,000

65-72..................... 6,600 ................4 million.................16.5/10,000

73+ .......................16,500................2.3 million..............72/10,000

Lifetime Total............................................................ 109/10,000

That is a rate of 1 per 100. 99% will NOT die from lung cancer.

Census 2000 PHC-T-9. Population by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the United States: 2000
http://www.census.gov/population/www/ce ... /tab01.pdf
Four Level Smoking Status-2002
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/age.asp? ... 4394&grp=0

Lung Cancer Prevalence
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5644a2.htm

SEER Stat Fact Sheets: Lung and Bronchus
http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/lungb.htm

Age of diagnosis - Smokers vs. Non-smokers
http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/full/25/5/472

[gary k]

Now, about the ex/former smokers.

If they quit more than 15 years ago, they have about the same risk of dying from lung cancer as never-smokers.
About 90% of the ex-smokers had quit more than 15 years ago.

If they have about the same risk of dying from lung cancer as never-smokers, it is a false claim to say that smoking 'caused' their lung cancer deaths.

Here is what the The American Lung Association had to say about that.
(Note: they have dropped this from their website)
Long-term Benefits of Quitting
At 10 years:
risk of lung cancer drops to as little as one-half that of continuing
smokers
At 15 years:
risk of death returns to nearly the level of people who have never
smoked.
(note: this statement would include Lung Cancer death!-Gary K.)

The Univ. of Chicago is a very highly rated and reputable school.

http://stopsmoking.uchicago.edu/benefits.html
Chicago STOP Smoking Research Project

Benefits of Quitting Smoking
Health benefits from quitting smoking:

lung cancer death rate decreases by half in 5 years, and is similar
to that of nonsmokers after 10 years

According to the CDC,there has actually been very little decrease in
the percentage of the population that smokes since about 1990.
1965 = 46% smoked
1990 = 23% smoked
2002 = 23% smoked
2006 = 20.1% smoked

About 90% of ex-smokers had quit by 1990.(23 of the 25.9%)

[WinstonSmith]

What part of this could you not understand?
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5644a2.htm

I could understand it fine. I couldn't find the info you provided at the link you provided. The info is at this link.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtm ... 2.htm#tab2

[gary k]

Actually, both links go to the same report.

None the less, I am glad that you were able to find the numbers. I was rather saddened when by saying:
"We're all entitled to our own opinions, but we're not entitled to make up our own facts."

You said that I was lying.

Here is another interesting fact about never-smokers and lung cancer death rates.

Over the past 20 years, the lung cancer death rate for never-smokers has about doubled!!!

The 1993 EPA Report, Chapter 5.1, states that the never-smoker lung cancer death rate is about 1/10,000.

The data given above shows the current never-smoker lung cancer death rate to be 2/10,000.