PUBLIC POLICY BY MISLEADING STATISTICS

Lung Cancer--Doll and Hill found 166 lung cancer deaths per 100,000 population in the smokers' grop and 7 per 100,000 in non-smokers. That means a smoker has 23.7 TIMES the risk of dying from lung cancer than a non-smoker.  Another figure from the anti-smoker activists is that 90% of lung cancers are found in smokers. That sounds properly scary and the figures may well be true. So?

Statistics don't work that way, and unless you have ALL the facts and look at ALL the reasoning, those figures make absolutely no sense to anyone, unless that someone is out to bolster his agenda.

Using the exact same Doll and Hill research, we find that a smoker has a 99.83% chance of NOT dying of lung cancer as opposed to a non-smokers' 99.99% chance of NOT dying of lung cancer. That is just as true as the original statement, so what's the purpose of this nearly pathological hysteria over smoking?  Even if you compound the risk over time (like compound interest) the non-smoker over a period of 40 years stands a 99.5% of NOT dying of lung cancer and the smoker has a 93.3% chance of NOT dying of the same disease.

The point is making public policy with misleading statistics is worse than wrong, it's evil.