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Is this a logical error?
Yes:
No:
Total Votes : 3

Author	Message

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:47 am	Post subject: Statistics: Patting dogs gives you lung cancer 99% of people with lung cancer have patted a dog, therefore patting dogs gives you lung cancer. Logic or illogic?


iRuleThisForum Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:37 am	Post subject: No, because ... 1. Most people have patted a dog at least once in their life. This is not a great test. 2. Smoking does affect your lung, and patting does not exactly do that. So, it's a bit unscientific to pick an event or action unrelated to lung and try to come up with any medical or biological correlation. I still maintain my opinion that it's a bit premature to come to conclude that smoking automatically causes lung cancer; however, I also think it's a bit extreme to say that smoking has no effect whatsoever. When you observe your health in macro scale, it is possible that smoking gets you relaxed or releases stress. It's possible. Also it's also possible that relaxation and stress release benefit your health. It's possible; HOWEVER, it's a bit extreme to say that smoking is all good and it has no effect whatsoever on any disease or condition.

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:18 pm	Post subject: But then why do people fall for the illogical statement that "80% of people with lung cancer are smokers, which proves that smoking causes lung cancer"? Even worse: why do they actually use that statistic - even mention it at all when it shows absolutely nothing but the fact that there are a lot of smokers? One could just as easily say that "95% of people with lung cancer make use of an automobile on a regular basis, therefore automobiles cause/increase the risk of lung cancer" Even their statistic clearly shows that 20% of people with lung cancer are not smokers, thus there may be other factors involved, eg genetics?

iRuleThisForum Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:39 pm	Post subject: Scolls wrote: Even their statistic clearly shows that 20% of people with lung cancer are not smokers, thus there may be other factors involved, eg genetics? Long term smoking does affect to alter your genes.

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 7:05 pm	Post subject: Perhaps so, but would you agree then that the popular statistic quoted of "80% of people with lung cancer ar smokers" is misused to imply that the statistic somehow indicates that smoking causes 80% of lung cancers? In other words, being a smoker is a sufficient condition for having lung cancer, but it is not a necessary condition. Therefore, the statistic itself does not imply that smoking causes 80% of lung cancer patients, but it is being misused to mislead the public! For more information on sufficient and necessary conditions Necessary and sufficient conditions

iRuleThisForum Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:47 pm	Post subject: Scolls wrote: Perhaps so, but would you agree then that the popular statistic quoted of "80% of people with lung cancer ar smokers" is misused to imply that the statistic somehow indicates that smoking causes 80% of lung cancers? In other words, being a smoker is a sufficient condition for having lung cancer, but it is not a necessary condition. Therefore, the statistic itself does not imply that smoking causes 80% of lung cancer patients, but it is being misused to mislead the public! Ok, that I agree. However, how would you respond to the following? The role of smoking Smoking, particularly of cigarettes, is believed to be by far the main cause of lung cancer, which at least in theory makes it one of the easiest diseases to prevent. In the United States, smoking is estimated to account for 87% of lung cancer cases in the U.S. (90% in men and 79% in women). There are hundreds of known carcinogens—such as polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrosamines, and radioactive heavy metals—present in cigarette smoke. Additionally, nicotine appears to depress the immune response to malignant growths in exposed tissue. The length of time a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked increases the person's chances of contracting lung cancer. If a person stops smoking, these chances steadily decrease as the lung damage is repaired. Passive smoking—the inhalation of smoke from another's smoking—has recently been identified as a much larger cause of lung cancer in non-smokers than previously believed. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1993 concluded that about 3,000 lung cancer-related deaths a year were caused by passive smoking, however since this report was declared null and void by a federal judge in 1998, the true extent is still contested by scientists. The document was originally published at Wikipedia and the document is licensed under GNU Free Document License. If you'd like to find out more about Sugar and hyperactivity, you might be interested in visiting this page in Wikipedia.

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 8:55 pm	Post subject: Well, to be honest, the moment they start talking "radioactive heavy metals", I tend to start switching off! Certainly I could agree that for instance if any ingested substance contained significant amounts of nitrousamines, one would be increasing a risk of cancer, but one also has to take into account that these substances get absorbed into the bloodstream, and I've yet to see the media try "smoking causes leukemia"! Those same nitrousamines get carried all over the body, so in significant amounts they could really cause cancers to form all over. So why the lungs should be singled out? What radioactive heavy metals by the way? Radium, Plutonium?

iRuleThisForum Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:18 am	Post subject: Scolls wrote: What radioactive heavy metals by the way? Radium, Plutonium? Magnesium?

GTAce Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:41 am	Post subject: Compare the percentage of those with lung cancer who are also smokers (85%?) to those of the entire population who are also smokers (30%?) I made up those numbers, but they've got to be something like that...there is your evidence.

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:42 pm	Post subject: iRuleThisForum wrote: Scolls wrote: What radioactive heavy metals by the way? Radium, Plutonium? Magnesium? Since when is Mg radioactive?

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:06 pm	Post subject: GTAce wrote: Compare the percentage of those with lung cancer who are also smokers (85%?) to those of the entire population who are also smokers (30%?) I made up those numbers, but they've got to be something like that...there is your evidence. And what is the predominant age-group for those with lung cancer? Young or old? Well, when they were young & smoking, just about everybody smoked, and it was quite fashionable to do so. But those days there was also much more use of things like asbestos, etc. So in that case the statistic would be rather ambiguous anyway. Nowadays just about everybody drives a motor vehicle of sorts, and those who don't are secondary exhaust-fume breathers. Probably around your made up 85% live relatively nearby a city, thus being in proximity to various refineries, factories, etc. So those 85% of lung-cancer patients are also, besides being smokers, drivers, secondary exhaust fume breathers, also breathe in this polluted air, as well as have family, are exposed to sunlight, are exposed to ozone and other natural toxic pollutants, and know somebody who knows somebody by the name of "John"! But it would be interesting to have a peek at statistics of numbers of people with congenital heart disease that are smokers. Perhaps their smoking caused their congenital heart disease? Statistics can lead to quite interesting conclusions when applied to an imaginary closed-system, but unfortunately there are just too many variables in reality to make the assumption that smoking causes lung cancer, when the cause of the other 15% it isn't blamed for remains yet unknown!!! Don't you think this is strange? I think it would be more likely that patting dogs causes lung cancer, since 100% of lung-cancer patients have patted a dog! Not 99% - that would leave 1% unexplained - so since 100% have patted a dog versus only 85% who are smokers leads me to believe that patting dogs looks statistically more probably the cause. But honestly, has anybody pondered about the effects of petroleum and diesel powered motor-vehicle exhaust fumes? Seems likely that 100% of people with lung cancer have been exposed to these toxic fumes for a very prolonged period! I mean, those fumes have been good enough in assisting numerous suicides, but I haven't heard of anyone trying to end-it-all by stuffing one end of a carton of cigarettes in the mouth and lighting the other end! Have you? Seems that the exhaust fumes are much more suitable to extinguishing life.

iRuleThisForum Joined: 23 Jul 2004 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 9:47 pm	Post subject: Scolls is a passionate smoking-does-not-cause-cancer believer. Very passionate.

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:23 pm	Post subject: iRuleThisForum wrote: Scolls is a passionate smoking-does-not-cause-cancer believer. Very passionate. Not really. I'm just very passionately against accepting statistics moulded out of over-simplification of complex systems to be used repetitively in order to brain-wash the public. If it's supposed to be such an axiomatic statement, then show us the proof with chemistry and microbiology - not trick statistics of this form: "85% of people with lung cancer are smokers. 30% of people are smokers globally. Therefore smoking causes lung cancer." To prove this statistic is a fallacy, just replace the words in bold and italics so that they refer to diet and obesity respectively. "85% of people who are obese are on diet. 30% of people are on diet globally. Therefore dieting causes obesity". Isn't this a bit like proof of its fallacy by reductio ad absurdum? Care to try make up a few yourself?

GTAce Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:53 am	Post subject: Ok...take 2 groups of people, smokers and non-smokers. Holding all else constant, I guarantee that a higher percentage of the smokers will have lung cancer than the non-smokers. If you don't believe that or want to try and dispute that....do it with somebody else because there's no sense in me arguing with you Smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, but it does increase the risk of lung cancer. Period. End of story.

Scolls Joined: 05 Aug 2005 Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:18 pm	Post subject: Perhps it does. My point is merely that it cannot be proven with any set of chosen statistics, since those do not cover all possible eventualities. Like what if there's later found to be a genetic predisposition to cancer that coincides with a higher probability of addictive behaviour, for example?

Author

Message

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:47 am

Post subject: Statistics: Patting dogs gives you lung cancer

99% of people with lung cancer have patted a dog, therefore patting dogs gives you lung cancer.

Logic or illogic?

iRuleThisForum

Joined: 23 Jul 2004

Posted: Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:37 am

Post subject:

No, because ...

1. Most people have patted a dog at least once in their life. This is not a great test.

2. Smoking does affect your lung, and patting does not exactly do that. So, it's a bit unscientific to pick an event or action unrelated to lung and try to come up with any medical or biological correlation.

I still maintain my opinion that it's a bit premature to come to conclude that smoking automatically causes lung cancer; however, I also think it's a bit extreme to say that smoking has no effect whatsoever. When you observe your health in macro scale, it is possible that smoking gets you relaxed or releases stress. It's possible. Also it's also possible that relaxation and stress release benefit your health. It's possible; HOWEVER, it's a bit extreme to say that smoking is all good and it has no effect whatsoever on any disease or condition.

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 4:18 pm

Post subject:

But then why do people fall for the illogical statement that "80% of people with lung cancer are smokers, which proves that smoking causes lung cancer"?

Even worse: why do they actually use that statistic - even mention it at all when it shows absolutely nothing but the fact that there are a lot of smokers?

One could just as easily say that "95% of people with lung cancer make use of an automobile on a regular basis, therefore automobiles cause/increase the risk of lung cancer"

Even their statistic clearly shows that 20% of people with lung cancer are not smokers, thus there may be other factors involved, eg genetics?

iRuleThisForum

Joined: 23 Jul 2004

Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:39 pm

Post subject:

Scolls wrote:

Even their statistic clearly shows that 20% of people with lung cancer are not smokers, thus there may be other factors involved, eg genetics?

Long term smoking does affect to alter your genes.

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 7:05 pm

Post subject:

Perhaps so, but would you agree then that the popular statistic quoted of "80% of people with lung cancer ar smokers" is misused to imply that the statistic somehow indicates that smoking causes 80% of lung cancers?

In other words, being a smoker is a sufficient condition for having lung cancer, but it is not a necessary condition. Therefore, the statistic itself does not imply that smoking causes 80% of lung cancer patients, but it is being misused to mislead the public!

For more information on sufficient and necessary conditions Necessary and sufficient conditions

iRuleThisForum

Joined: 23 Jul 2004

Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:47 pm

Post subject:

Scolls wrote:

Ok, that I agree. However, how would you respond to the following?

The role of smoking

Smoking, particularly of cigarettes, is believed to be by far the main cause of lung cancer, which at least in theory makes it one of the easiest diseases to prevent. In the United States, smoking is estimated to account for 87% of lung cancer cases in the U.S. (90% in men and 79% in women). There are hundreds of known carcinogens—such as polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrosamines, and radioactive heavy metals—present in cigarette smoke. Additionally, nicotine appears to depress the immune response to malignant growths in exposed tissue. The length of time a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked increases the person's chances of contracting lung cancer. If a person stops smoking, these chances steadily decrease as the lung damage is repaired.

Passive smoking—the inhalation of smoke from another's smoking—has recently been identified as a much larger cause of lung cancer in non-smokers than previously believed. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1993 concluded that about 3,000 lung cancer-related deaths a year were caused by passive smoking, however since this report was declared null and void by a federal judge in 1998, the true extent is still contested by scientists.

The document was originally published at Wikipedia and the document is licensed under GNU Free Document License. If you'd like to find out more about Sugar and hyperactivity, you might be interested in visiting this page in Wikipedia.

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2006 8:55 pm

Post subject:

Well, to be honest, the moment they start talking "radioactive heavy metals", I tend to start switching off!

Certainly I could agree that for instance if any ingested substance contained significant amounts of nitrousamines, one would be increasing a risk of cancer, but one also has to take into account that these substances get absorbed into the bloodstream, and I've yet to see the media try "smoking causes leukemia"! Those same nitrousamines get carried all over the body, so in significant amounts they could really cause cancers to form all over. So why the lungs should be singled out?

What radioactive heavy metals by the way? Radium, Plutonium?

iRuleThisForum

Joined: 23 Jul 2004

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:18 am

Post subject:

Scolls wrote:

What radioactive heavy metals by the way? Radium, Plutonium?

Magnesium?

GTAce

Joined: 09 Apr 2006

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:41 am

Post subject:

Compare the percentage of those with lung cancer who are also smokers (85%?) to those of the entire population who are also smokers (30%?)

I made up those numbers, but they've got to be something like that...there is your evidence.

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:42 pm

Post subject:

iRuleThisForum wrote:

Scolls wrote:

What radioactive heavy metals by the way? Radium, Plutonium?

Magnesium?

Since when is Mg radioactive?

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:06 pm

Post subject:

GTAce wrote:

And what is the predominant age-group for those with lung cancer? Young or old? Well, when they were young & smoking, just about everybody smoked, and it was quite fashionable to do so.
But those days there was also much more use of things like asbestos, etc.
So in that case the statistic would be rather ambiguous anyway.

Nowadays just about everybody drives a motor vehicle of sorts, and those who don't are secondary exhaust-fume breathers. Probably around your made up 85% live relatively nearby a city, thus being in proximity to various refineries, factories, etc. So those 85% of lung-cancer patients are also, besides being smokers, drivers, secondary exhaust fume breathers, also breathe in this polluted air, as well as have family, are exposed to sunlight, are exposed to ozone and other natural toxic pollutants, and know somebody who knows somebody by the name of "John"!

But it would be interesting to have a peek at statistics of numbers of people with congenital heart disease that are smokers. Perhaps their smoking caused their congenital heart disease? Laughing

Statistics can lead to quite interesting conclusions when applied to an imaginary closed-system, but unfortunately there are just too many variables in reality to make the assumption that smoking causes lung cancer, when the cause of the other 15% it isn't blamed for remains yet unknown!!! Don't you think this is strange? Razz

I think it would be more likely that patting dogs causes lung cancer, since 100% of lung-cancer patients have patted a dog! Not 99% - that would leave 1% unexplained - so since 100% have patted a dog versus only 85% who are smokers leads me to believe that patting dogs looks statistically more probably the cause. Confused

But honestly, has anybody pondered about the effects of petroleum and diesel powered motor-vehicle exhaust fumes? Seems likely that 100% of people with lung cancer have been exposed to these toxic fumes for a very prolonged period!
I mean, those fumes have been good enough in assisting numerous suicides, but I haven't heard of anyone trying to end-it-all by stuffing one end of a carton of cigarettes in the mouth and lighting the other end! Have you?
Seems that the exhaust fumes are much more suitable to extinguishing life. Idea

iRuleThisForum

Joined: 23 Jul 2004

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 9:47 pm

Post subject:

Scolls is a passionate smoking-does-not-cause-cancer believer. Very passionate.

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:23 pm

Post subject:

iRuleThisForum wrote:

Scolls is a passionate smoking-does-not-cause-cancer believer. Very passionate.

Not really. I'm just very passionately against accepting statistics moulded out of over-simplification of complex systems to be used repetitively in order to brain-wash the public.

If it's supposed to be such an axiomatic statement, then show us the proof with chemistry and microbiology - not trick statistics of this form:

"85% of people with lung cancer are smokers. 30% of people are smokers globally. Therefore smoking causes lung cancer."

To prove this statistic is a fallacy, just replace the words in bold and italics so that they refer to diet and obesity respectively.

"85% of people who are obese are on diet. 30% of people are on diet globally. Therefore dieting causes obesity".

Isn't this a bit like proof of its fallacy by reductio ad absurdum?

Care to try make up a few yourself?
Laughing

GTAce

Joined: 09 Apr 2006

Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:53 am

Post subject:

Ok...take 2 groups of people, smokers and non-smokers. Holding all else constant, I guarantee that a higher percentage of the smokers will have lung cancer than the non-smokers.

If you don't believe that or want to try and dispute that....do it with somebody else because there's no sense in me arguing with you Wink

Smoking doesn't cause lung cancer, but it does increase the risk of lung cancer. Period. End of story.

Scolls

Joined: 05 Aug 2005

Posted: Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:18 pm

Post subject:

Perhps it does. My point is merely that it cannot be proven with any set of chosen statistics, since those do not cover all possible eventualities. Like what if there's later found to be a genetic predisposition to cancer that coincides with a higher probability of addictive behaviour, for example?

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