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> How to Lie With Statistics There is no fallacy in the statement you've focused on. I'm a bit confused. Sunscreen is sold and used to prevent cancer. There

> How to Lie With Statistics There is no fallacy in the statement you've focused on. I'm a bit confused. Sunscreen is sold and used to prevent cancer. There's no evidence it has, and sound reasons to suggest sunscreen has contributed to cancer. That's all it's saying. > Diagnosing autism without bias is hard. Are you suggesting the autism epidemic is a product of better diagnosis? If so, where are all the autistic 50 year olds?

kurtosis 18y ago
This is weak evidence. I would be more convinced by a controlled experiment. Do a study where two demographically equivalent groups are given equal sun exposures one with sunscreen the other without, and then compare their rates of melanoma. The author doesn't have data on sun exposure or evidence that the sunscreen sold is actually used, etc. etc.
aasarava 18y ago
The problem is that the author assumes that the increasing rate of cancer is due to ineffective sunscreen. But there are many other possible causes: For one, the use of sunscreen may give people a false sense of security, leading them to stay out in the sun longer than they would without sunscreen. Also possible is that advances in healthcare are allowing people to live much longer on average, which in turn has affected statistics as cancer becomes a larger problem to deal with among the elderly.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  > there are many other possible causes Circumstantial evidence is court admissible.
  - StrawberryFrog 18y ago
    So? Circumstantial evidence may be admissible in court, but particularly in science, it is not sufficient.
- euccastro 18y ago
  Another possibility is that the rise in melanoma and the increase in sunscreen use are caused by the damage to the ozone layer and the corresponding social alarm, respectively. We have mostly forgotten about the ozone layer, but it was a hot topic not so long ago. OTOH, some 10 years ago, some sunscreen makes were forbidden (at least in Spain) because a component in them (I can't recall the name) had been proven to cause melanoma.
boredguy8 18y ago
At McDonald's for lunch today. Well, I doubt "all", but definitely "plenty". Unfortunately adult autism care in the US is fairly deplorable.
- boredguy8 18y ago
  Umm, this is a true story. There was a group there, being helped by 2 or 3 escorts for one of their daily or weekly activities. I wasn't insulting employees of McDonalds. If the parent poster isn't seeing adult mentally handicapped, s/he is not looking very hard.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
Do I have to spell it out? The observation is that sunscreen sales and melanoma rates are correlated. That's probably true, but it doesn't tell us anything about causation, one way or the other. Perhaps sunscreen is ineffective against melanoma. Or perhaps melanoma rates are rising because sunscreen use causes melanoma. Or perhaps sunscreen sales are rising because melanoma rates are rising. (As someone who has just watched a close relative die of metastatic melanoma, I assure you that the experience really inspires you to wear sunscreen and go to the dermatologist. Every time I get a pimple, I have to fight the desire to visit the emergency room.) Perhaps sunscreen sales and melanoma rate would be completely unrelated, if they weren't both driven by an external cause. Perhaps they're both caused by population increases in the Sun Belt, or by other demographic changes. Perhaps sunscreen is highly effective against melanoma, but there are still lots of older patients who got all their sun in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s before sunscreen was invented, and those patients are still getting melanoma at large rates. Or perhaps sunscreen is completely ineffective, but we won't know until the people who used it as kids reach their sixties. Or perhaps sunscreen causes melanoma... but it takes more than fifty years to do so. Perhaps sunscreen causes autism! I guess that's what this article is trying to suggest. As you can see, pulling hypotheses out of one's ass is easy to do, and it's fun for the whole family. It's also uninformative. Scientific studies would be informative. I'm sure there are lots and lots and lots of published studies which address hypotheses like these. It's a pity that the article didn't cite any of those studies.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  If you want to dismiss correlation altogether you should really just argue that all medical research and discussion is useless (which I wouldn't consider an absurd position). You can tear apart pretty much any correlation backed assertions with "what-ifs." One simply must be reasonable. If sunscreen sales clearly negatively correlated to melanoma, that would be a point worthy of consideration in this discussion, no? It is reasonable to consider this lack of correlation as a piece of evidence in support of the discussed framework. Apply your own grain of salt: this is not a scientific publication and the audience is assumed to be a reasonable person. There would be practically nothing to say in the "non-sciences" (medicine, economics, etc.) if one were not allowed to admit "circumstantial evidence."
sabat 18y ago
Are you suggesting the autism epidemic is a product of better diagnosis? If so, where are all the autistic 50 year olds? The autism "epidemic" is largely being caused by an expansion of the definition of autism. Hence, lots of young people with Asperger's, and other mild autisms, but not many 50-year-olds. They're not being diagnosed. (Whether Asperger's is an actual syndrome or just a product of upbringing and personality type: that's a different argument. I tend toward the latter -- I am skeptical about its existence at all.)
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  As described in the article, autistic people are almost completely dysfunctional. Have you ever met one? It's a bit ridiculous to suggest full blown autism was occurring at current rates, which are having serious public school budget impacts, in the past and nobody noticed. And even more ridiculous to suggest that nobody has bothered to look for all these previously undiagnosed adult autism sufferers, who would have to still be living with their parents or institutionalized.
  - sabat 18y ago
    If they're suggesting that the rise of full-blown autism has somehow risen to epic proportions, they're statistically incorrect. I think they're including milder forms and pretending they're all the same.
  - Tichy 18y ago
    I don't think it is inconceivable that the adult autism sufferers remain undetected. Presumably, their lives are already arranged. Either they survived somehow, or they didn't. If they survived, there probably is some kind of routine that keeps them alive (maybe an institution, or they live as beggars on the street, or whatever). In that case, why should somebody check up on them again? Sure, it would be nice if somebody would, but why should it happen? When was the last time you learned about some new medical breakthrough and thought "hey, let's go out on the street and check all homeless people to see if they have this condition"? (Not saying older autistic people are homeless, I have no idea how they survive once their parents are dead). Also, there is no cure for autism (or is there?), so simply correcting the diagnosis might not help the older autistic people much (at least not "help" in terms of making it easier for the people they live with - might be easier for themselves, though). Maybe now they are simply sedated with powerful drugs most of the time and don't do much. Anyway, the main point remains: be careful with "common sense" conclusions.

kurtosis 18y ago

This is weak evidence. I would be more convinced by a controlled experiment. Do a study where two demographically equivalent groups are given equal sun exposures one with sunscreen the other without, and then compare their rates of melanoma. The author doesn't have data on sun exposure or evidence that the sunscreen sold is actually used, etc. etc.

aasarava 18y ago

The problem is that the author assumes that the increasing rate of cancer is due to ineffective sunscreen. But there are many other possible causes: For one, the use of sunscreen may give people a false sense of security, leading them to stay out in the sun longer than they would without sunscreen. Also possible is that advances in healthcare are allowing people to live much longer on average, which in turn has affected statistics as cancer becomes a larger problem to deal with among the elderly.

kingkongrevenge 18y ago
> there are many other possible causes Circumstantial evidence is court admissible.
- StrawberryFrog 18y ago
  So? Circumstantial evidence may be admissible in court, but particularly in science, it is not sufficient.
euccastro 18y ago
Another possibility is that the rise in melanoma and the increase in sunscreen use are caused by the damage to the ozone layer and the corresponding social alarm, respectively. We have mostly forgotten about the ozone layer, but it was a hot topic not so long ago. OTOH, some 10 years ago, some sunscreen makes were forbidden (at least in Spain) because a component in them (I can't recall the name) had been proven to cause melanoma.

boredguy8 18y ago

At McDonald's for lunch today. Well, I doubt "all", but definitely "plenty". Unfortunately adult autism care in the US is fairly deplorable.

boredguy8 18y ago
Umm, this is a true story. There was a group there, being helped by 2 or 3 escorts for one of their daily or weekly activities. I wasn't insulting employees of McDonalds. If the parent poster isn't seeing adult mentally handicapped, s/he is not looking very hard.

mechanical_fish 18y ago

Do I have to spell it out? The observation is that sunscreen sales and melanoma rates are correlated. That's probably true, but it doesn't tell us anything about causation, one way or the other. Perhaps sunscreen is ineffective against melanoma. Or perhaps melanoma rates are rising because sunscreen use causes melanoma. Or perhaps sunscreen sales are rising because melanoma rates are rising. (As someone who has just watched a close relative die of metastatic melanoma, I assure you that the experience really inspires you to wear sunscreen and go to the dermatologist. Every time I get a pimple, I have to fight the desire to visit the emergency room.) Perhaps sunscreen sales and melanoma rate would be completely unrelated, if they weren't both driven by an external cause. Perhaps they're both caused by population increases in the Sun Belt, or by other demographic changes. Perhaps sunscreen is highly effective against melanoma, but there are still lots of older patients who got all their sun in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s before sunscreen was invented, and those patients are still getting melanoma at large rates. Or perhaps sunscreen is completely ineffective, but we won't know until the people who used it as kids reach their sixties. Or perhaps sunscreen causes melanoma... but it takes more than fifty years to do so. Perhaps sunscreen causes autism! I guess that's what this article is trying to suggest. As you can see, pulling hypotheses out of one's ass is easy to do, and it's fun for the whole family. It's also uninformative. Scientific studies would be informative. I'm sure there are lots and lots and lots of published studies which address hypotheses like these. It's a pity that the article didn't cite any of those studies.

kingkongrevenge 18y ago
If you want to dismiss correlation altogether you should really just argue that all medical research and discussion is useless (which I wouldn't consider an absurd position). You can tear apart pretty much any correlation backed assertions with "what-ifs." One simply must be reasonable. If sunscreen sales clearly negatively correlated to melanoma, that would be a point worthy of consideration in this discussion, no? It is reasonable to consider this lack of correlation as a piece of evidence in support of the discussed framework. Apply your own grain of salt: this is not a scientific publication and the audience is assumed to be a reasonable person. There would be practically nothing to say in the "non-sciences" (medicine, economics, etc.) if one were not allowed to admit "circumstantial evidence."

sabat 18y ago

Are you suggesting the autism epidemic is a product of better diagnosis? If so, where are all the autistic 50 year olds? The autism "epidemic" is largely being caused by an expansion of the definition of autism. Hence, lots of young people with Asperger's, and other mild autisms, but not many 50-year-olds. They're not being diagnosed. (Whether Asperger's is an actual syndrome or just a product of upbringing and personality type: that's a different argument. I tend toward the latter -- I am skeptical about its existence at all.)

kingkongrevenge 18y ago
As described in the article, autistic people are almost completely dysfunctional. Have you ever met one? It's a bit ridiculous to suggest full blown autism was occurring at current rates, which are having serious public school budget impacts, in the past and nobody noticed. And even more ridiculous to suggest that nobody has bothered to look for all these previously undiagnosed adult autism sufferers, who would have to still be living with their parents or institutionalized.
- sabat 18y ago
  If they're suggesting that the rise of full-blown autism has somehow risen to epic proportions, they're statistically incorrect. I think they're including milder forms and pretending they're all the same.
- Tichy 18y ago
  I don't think it is inconceivable that the adult autism sufferers remain undetected. Presumably, their lives are already arranged. Either they survived somehow, or they didn't. If they survived, there probably is some kind of routine that keeps them alive (maybe an institution, or they live as beggars on the street, or whatever). In that case, why should somebody check up on them again? Sure, it would be nice if somebody would, but why should it happen? When was the last time you learned about some new medical breakthrough and thought "hey, let's go out on the street and check all homeless people to see if they have this condition"? (Not saying older autistic people are homeless, I have no idea how they survive once their parents are dead). Also, there is no cure for autism (or is there?), so simply correcting the diagnosis might not help the older autistic people much (at least not "help" in terms of making it easier for the people they live with - might be easier for themselves, though). Maybe now they are simply sedated with powerful drugs most of the time and don't do much. Anyway, the main point remains: be careful with "common sense" conclusions.