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Actually, the "inventor" of public relations, Edward Bernays, illustrates my point really well. He claimed credit for getting women to smoke with his PR stunts.
by cm2012 7y ago
Actually, the "inventor" of public relations, Edward Bernays, illustrates my point really well. He claimed credit for getting women to smoke with his PR stunts. The data shows that the trend of women smoking started years before he did anything, and the trendline was completely unaffected when he did his stuff. He, at best, got people already smoking to switch to the brand of cigarettes he promoted.
- nemo 7y agoI feel like the data might not be a slam dunk for your case at all. Bernays started his "Torches of Freedom" PR campaign in 1929. The rate of women smoking actually dropped dramatically soon after thanks to the Great Depression. Once the Depression was over, the trend line does not appear to be unaffected, though the reasons it trended as it did aren't simple to attribute. Cigarette companies were already advertising to women before Bernays' PR campaign, but they increased their advertising afterwards as a response to it. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4843a2.htm#fig1 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4843a2.htm#fig1
- cm2012 7y agoOur disagreement shows the issue with correlation studies. People will interpret them to say whatever conclusion they wanted, reducing the scientific value to nil. If the OP study found the opposite, it wouldn't have made it to the top of HN, and if it did, every comment would mock it for using correlation and would be pointing out other explanations.