 Not
a day passes without some anti smoking autocrat trumpeting a piece of 'science'
claiming, in essence, that we all die of smoking. Once again, on January 31'st,
2007, the compressor horn was blown. In the ”American Journal of Public Health”
no less than seven grant junkies published a 'study' claiming that 'passive
smoke' increases risk of lung cancer by 200 %.
Here is the abstract. You need not pay for the study, let alone
read it. I'll explain the principles behind the study in a few brief sentences.
First, we note that the 'study' is a meta-analysis. That means
it is just a rehash of some old 'studies'. Second we note that 20 'studies',
from all over the world were 'selected'. That's all we need to know.
The 20 'studies' were, of course, cherry
picked. By virtue of the underlying studies being statistical, we understand
that some studies will randomly fluke up higher risks than other studies. There
are at least 100 'studies' to pick from, so plucking the ones that 'prove' the
desired point is straightforward.
It's more or less like rolling dice. If you
need six'es, just roll enough times, and you'll get all the six'es you need.
Having selected the desired studies, the
rehashing is simple arithmetic. All the statistical analysis is a big circus to
impress the audience. What the study proves is that data mining can be
used to conjure something out of nothing.
The study is a replay of one of the oldest
statistical tricks in the bag. I'll quote from a little book titled ”How To Lie
With Statistics”, by Darell Huff, published 1954. From the opening sentence of
chapter 3, we have:
"What you should
do when told the results of a survey, a statistician once advised, is ask
”How many juries did you poll before you found this one?”
A metaanalysis is simply another way of
playing that trick.
|
|
FORCES
INTERNATIONAL (Forces, Inc.) is a non-profit educational corporation
organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, USA. Forces, Inc. has
received a charitable tax exemption under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)3.
Your contribution is tax deductible.
FORCES INTERNATIONAL © trademark,
logo and original material copyright © 1995-2004 is property of FORCES
INTERNATIONAL unless otherwise indicated. Original FORCES material may be
reprinted or used in any non-commercial form if proper credit is given to
FORCES and original intent remains intact. All other material remains
property of its creator/owner. |
