5 ms·

Didn't know that there was anyone arguing it doesn't, but... nice article.

dekhn 3y ago
Fisher, one of the great statisticians, argued that insufficient evidence existed to conclude with certainty that smoking causes cancer. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2000852/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2000852/ After that, a number of well-designed experiments on rodents demonstrated that smoking causes (strong causation) cancer (in rodents) beyond a reasonable doubt (as in, if you disagree, you'd better bring some impeccable data).
- alexmolas 3y ago
  Is this Fisher the one that proposed the "p<0.05" rule?
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Yes... are you going to criticize him for that? It's worth reading the whole backstory (start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher) A flawed genius
    - alexmolas 3y ago
      No, why should I criticize him for that? Btw, I just learned that he made the Iris dataset famous.
      - dekhn 3y ago
        Many people criticize p=0.05, https://sites.uw.edu/stlab/2016/03/09/the-arbitrary-magic-of-p-0-05/ https://sites.uw.edu/stlab/2016/03/09/the-arbitrary-magic-of...
      - jldugger 3y ago
        > No, why should I criticize him for that? Because after that academia made it the gold standard of research in most disciplines, leading to what many describe as a "replication crisis" in social sciences. But surely anyone criticizing him for that would have to prove they've already sufficiently criticized him for the whole eugenics thing.
        kragen 3y ago
        you seem to adhere to the intellectual norms of the great leap forward rather than those of science or philosophy in science nobody ever has to 'prove they've already sufficiently criticized' anyone or anything they just provide evidence enjoy your auto-da-fe but please do it somewhere else, only involving people who are into that kind of thing
        jldugger 3y ago
        I'm sorry you feel triggered in mentioning that the guy was a leader in the eugenics movement?
- hughw 3y ago
  Judea Pearl wrote a book, Causality, introducing Bayesian networks to address the inadequacy, even refusal, of Fisher's statistics to model causes and effects. Here's a lecture he gave almost 30 years ago [1] that's entertaining and accessible. He mentions the tobacco issue and Fisher specifically. [1] http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/BOOK-2K/causality2-epilogue.pdf http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/BOOK-2K/causality2-epilogue.pdf
  - dekhn 3y ago
    Thanks. I've never been able to understand the math behind Pearl but I appreciated the little diagram in the Fisher smoking section that clearly lays out causality of models diagrammatically.
  - jldugger 3y ago
    I think it was Pearl's Book of Why that went into far more detail about how it was decided that tobacco causes cancer from purely observational data. The technique was... relatively convoluted, and supposedly Fischer fought tooth and nail against Bayesian techniques required to adequately answer any such causal questions.
- rdedev 3y ago
  Fisher was a smoker too right? Pretty sure his bosses played a part too
  - dekhn 3y ago
    he was a consultant for the tobacco industry. I think he may have raised some legitimate questions of what constitutes "sufficient evidence" for making large-scale public health policy. But yes, I think his position mostly came from his biases.

Fisher, one of the great statisticians, argued that insufficient evidence existed to conclude with certainty that smoking causes cancer. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2000852/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2000852/ After that, a number of well-designed experiments on rodents demonstrated that smoking causes (strong causation) cancer (in rodents) beyond a reasonable doubt (as in, if you disagree, you'd better bring some impeccable data).

alexmolas 3y ago
Is this Fisher the one that proposed the "p<0.05" rule?
- dekhn 3y ago
  Yes... are you going to criticize him for that? It's worth reading the whole backstory (start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher) A flawed genius
  - alexmolas 3y ago
    No, why should I criticize him for that? Btw, I just learned that he made the Iris dataset famous.
    - dekhn 3y ago
      Many people criticize p=0.05, https://sites.uw.edu/stlab/2016/03/09/the-arbitrary-magic-of-p-0-05/ https://sites.uw.edu/stlab/2016/03/09/the-arbitrary-magic-of...
    - jldugger 3y ago
      > No, why should I criticize him for that? Because after that academia made it the gold standard of research in most disciplines, leading to what many describe as a "replication crisis" in social sciences. But surely anyone criticizing him for that would have to prove they've already sufficiently criticized him for the whole eugenics thing.
      - kragen 3y ago
        you seem to adhere to the intellectual norms of the great leap forward rather than those of science or philosophy in science nobody ever has to 'prove they've already sufficiently criticized' anyone or anything they just provide evidence enjoy your auto-da-fe but please do it somewhere else, only involving people who are into that kind of thing
        jldugger 3y ago
        I'm sorry you feel triggered in mentioning that the guy was a leader in the eugenics movement?
hughw 3y ago
Judea Pearl wrote a book, Causality, introducing Bayesian networks to address the inadequacy, even refusal, of Fisher's statistics to model causes and effects. Here's a lecture he gave almost 30 years ago [1] that's entertaining and accessible. He mentions the tobacco issue and Fisher specifically. [1] http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/BOOK-2K/causality2-epilogue.pdf http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/BOOK-2K/causality2-epilogue.pdf
- dekhn 3y ago
  Thanks. I've never been able to understand the math behind Pearl but I appreciated the little diagram in the Fisher smoking section that clearly lays out causality of models diagrammatically.
- jldugger 3y ago
  I think it was Pearl's Book of Why that went into far more detail about how it was decided that tobacco causes cancer from purely observational data. The technique was... relatively convoluted, and supposedly Fischer fought tooth and nail against Bayesian techniques required to adequately answer any such causal questions.
rdedev 3y ago
Fisher was a smoker too right? Pretty sure his bosses played a part too
- dekhn 3y ago
  he was a consultant for the tobacco industry. I think he may have raised some legitimate questions of what constitutes "sufficient evidence" for making large-scale public health policy. But yes, I think his position mostly came from his biases.