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Why the Father of Modern Statistics Didn’t Believe Smoking Caused Cancer

82 points by wanderer42 10y ago

logibly 10y ago
Pretty sure, habitual smokers will use this as an excuse to smoke more and ultimately leading to cancer.
known 10y ago
Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox
proteinbased 10y ago
Short answer: because he was employed by tobacco firms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher
- brittonsmith 10y ago
  The section in wikipedia that discusses this mentions that it is not clear that his employment by tobacco firms motivated his behavior: From wikipedia: 'To quote his biographers Yates and Mather, "It has been suggested that the fact that Fisher was employed as consultant by the tobacco firms in this controversy casts doubt on the value of his arguments. This is to misjudge the man. He was not above accepting financial reward for his labours, but the reason for his interest was undoubtedly his dislike and mistrust of puritanical tendencies of all kinds; and perhaps also the personal solace he had always found in tobacco."' I believe this is thesis of the original article as well.
  - DavidSJ 10y ago
    There is still an open debate among statisticians as to whether employment of statisticians by tobacco firms causes statisticians to disbelieve in tobacco-caused cancer.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Slightly shorter answer: because he smoked.
Gatsky 10y ago
“All scientific work is incomplete," he said. "All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that it appears to demand at a given time.” This is a very salient point, and I think defines the right attitude to these matters, eg climate change.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Especially when you have very poor predictive models and some of the possible outcomes are catastrophic. As an aside it is impossible to calculate the net present value of a humanity ending catastrophic event. When we are weighing up the financial cost of doing anything about the release of more GHG into the atmosphere, we have have a finite positive benefit on the release more side (i.e. coal and oil are cheaper than renewals) added to potentially infinite negative extinction event (i.e. the climate hits a runaway positive feedback rise that make human life impossible). The sum is always negative no matter how low the risk of extinction.
  - Iv 10y ago
    What if all the possible course of action do have a small probability of causing our extinction? After all, any money spent in any other matter than astronomy yields the risk to make us miss an incoming asteroid (or an angry alien fleet) If your tool allows infinite negative, it fails at providing guidelines.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      I am just suggesting that this is an example of what the maths tells us, not that it is a useful model. In practice humans accepts some chance of extinction in return for an economic benefit. The only problem is as a species we do tend to ignore the long rail risk even when that risk is rather more than zero.
  - slavik81 10y ago
    > The sum is always negative no matter how low the risk of extinction. That makes this model rather useless for arguing what must be done. For example, it's ridiculously, incredibly unlikely that making tea will lead to extinction by nuclear armageddon. But it's not impossible. As such, making tea would also have an infinite, negative expected value. It would be effectively as bad as just pressing the nuclear button. That being said, I think your only problem is in assuming that the human race is infinitely valuable. It's not. There's definitely a limit to how much an individual would give up to prevent extinction.
mathiasrw 10y ago
Follow the money...
kazinator 10y ago
That's the Fisher of the Fisher-Yates (a.k.a. Knuth) shuffle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%E2%80%93Yates_shuffle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%E2%80%93Yates_shuffle
abpavel 10y ago
"The debate is now over" ... I wish. On paper, maybe, but on the streets I still see a sizable portion of population that believes smoking is not so bad when combined with drinking, or that smoking thinner cigarettes is ok.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  it's an irrational mix of not-me behavior, plain ignorance to one's health in the future, good old addict behavior and so on. humans are far from being rational beings, and addictions are all about emotions
- ablation 10y ago
  Just because the debate is over, doesn't mean people will stop doing it. People do things they know to be harmful every day, from drinking high-sugar soda to eating large amounts of red meat. It's just people.
  - weego 10y ago
    The red meat thing is false BTW.
    - ablation 10y ago
      Replace with anything you fancy, then. The point still stands. People do bad stuff to themselves fully aware of the consequences.
      - npiazza83 10y ago
        Like eating too many, too few, or just the right amount of eggs high in good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, or just the right amount of morally ambiguous cholesterol.
        ablation 10y ago
        Whatever blows your hair back, bud.
samfisher83 10y ago
isn't Gauss the father of modern statistics?
- StClaire 10y ago
  Gauss did some interesting work related to least squares and linear regression, but Fisher came up with the null hypothesis and P-values, Maximum Likelihood Estimation, the concept of a control and designed experiment, and some other stuff. 50% of most standard statistics courses fell out of his head.
aab0 10y ago
Long /r/statistics discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/53vpvy/why_the_father_of_modern_statistics_didn%C3%A2t/ https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/53vpvy/why_the_...
vorotato 10y ago
So uh... did he die of cancer?

82 points by wanderer42 10y ago

logibly 10y ago

Pretty sure, habitual smokers will use this as an excuse to smoke more and ultimately leading to cancer.

known 10y ago

Sounds like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox

proteinbased 10y ago

Short answer: because he was employed by tobacco firms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher

brittonsmith 10y ago
The section in wikipedia that discusses this mentions that it is not clear that his employment by tobacco firms motivated his behavior: From wikipedia: 'To quote his biographers Yates and Mather, "It has been suggested that the fact that Fisher was employed as consultant by the tobacco firms in this controversy casts doubt on the value of his arguments. This is to misjudge the man. He was not above accepting financial reward for his labours, but the reason for his interest was undoubtedly his dislike and mistrust of puritanical tendencies of all kinds; and perhaps also the personal solace he had always found in tobacco."' I believe this is thesis of the original article as well.
- DavidSJ 10y ago
  There is still an open debate among statisticians as to whether employment of statisticians by tobacco firms causes statisticians to disbelieve in tobacco-caused cancer.
danieltillett 10y ago
Slightly shorter answer: because he smoked.

Gatsky 10y ago

“All scientific work is incomplete," he said. "All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that it appears to demand at a given time.” This is a very salient point, and I think defines the right attitude to these matters, eg climate change.

danieltillett 10y ago
Especially when you have very poor predictive models and some of the possible outcomes are catastrophic. As an aside it is impossible to calculate the net present value of a humanity ending catastrophic event. When we are weighing up the financial cost of doing anything about the release of more GHG into the atmosphere, we have have a finite positive benefit on the release more side (i.e. coal and oil are cheaper than renewals) added to potentially infinite negative extinction event (i.e. the climate hits a runaway positive feedback rise that make human life impossible). The sum is always negative no matter how low the risk of extinction.
- Iv 10y ago
  What if all the possible course of action do have a small probability of causing our extinction? After all, any money spent in any other matter than astronomy yields the risk to make us miss an incoming asteroid (or an angry alien fleet) If your tool allows infinite negative, it fails at providing guidelines.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    I am just suggesting that this is an example of what the maths tells us, not that it is a useful model. In practice humans accepts some chance of extinction in return for an economic benefit. The only problem is as a species we do tend to ignore the long rail risk even when that risk is rather more than zero.
- slavik81 10y ago
  > The sum is always negative no matter how low the risk of extinction. That makes this model rather useless for arguing what must be done. For example, it's ridiculously, incredibly unlikely that making tea will lead to extinction by nuclear armageddon. But it's not impossible. As such, making tea would also have an infinite, negative expected value. It would be effectively as bad as just pressing the nuclear button. That being said, I think your only problem is in assuming that the human race is infinitely valuable. It's not. There's definitely a limit to how much an individual would give up to prevent extinction.

mathiasrw 10y ago

Follow the money...

kazinator 10y ago

That's the Fisher of the Fisher-Yates (a.k.a. Knuth) shuffle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%E2%80%93Yates_shuffle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%E2%80%93Yates_shuffle

abpavel 10y ago

"The debate is now over" ... I wish. On paper, maybe, but on the streets I still see a sizable portion of population that believes smoking is not so bad when combined with drinking, or that smoking thinner cigarettes is ok.

saiya-jin 10y ago
it's an irrational mix of not-me behavior, plain ignorance to one's health in the future, good old addict behavior and so on. humans are far from being rational beings, and addictions are all about emotions
ablation 10y ago
Just because the debate is over, doesn't mean people will stop doing it. People do things they know to be harmful every day, from drinking high-sugar soda to eating large amounts of red meat. It's just people.
- weego 10y ago
  The red meat thing is false BTW.
  - ablation 10y ago
    Replace with anything you fancy, then. The point still stands. People do bad stuff to themselves fully aware of the consequences.
    - npiazza83 10y ago
      Like eating too many, too few, or just the right amount of eggs high in good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, or just the right amount of morally ambiguous cholesterol.
      - ablation 10y ago
        Whatever blows your hair back, bud.

samfisher83 10y ago

isn't Gauss the father of modern statistics?

StClaire 10y ago
Gauss did some interesting work related to least squares and linear regression, but Fisher came up with the null hypothesis and P-values, Maximum Likelihood Estimation, the concept of a control and designed experiment, and some other stuff. 50% of most standard statistics courses fell out of his head.

aab0 10y ago

Long /r/statistics discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/53vpvy/why_the_father_of_modern_statistics_didn%C3%A2t/ https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/53vpvy/why_the_...

vorotato 10y ago

So uh... did he die of cancer?