They are fudging the numbers.

[NGAHaze]

OK, as promised, a perfect example of ANTZ fudging the numbers (with links.) I had actually just posted this in another thread, so I'm just pasting it here:

Some interesting numbers regarding the smoking rates that people should know...

The ANTZ like to claim that their methods work. Higher taxes, banning flavors, smoking bans, insurance rates, not hiring smokers and billions spent on cessation programs and pharmaceutical products has reduced the smoking rate from 25.7% in 1991 to just 19% in 2011 (20 years.) Wow! A 25% reduction. Still needs improvement, but not bad considering the smoking rate in 1981 was between 32% and 33%, right?

But if you actually look at the numbers the CDC reported for those years, the clear picture of success gets quite fuzzy.

In 1991, there were 46.3 million smokers (and the number was nearly the same ten years later in 2001 at 46.2 million.)

In 2011, there were 43.8 million smokers. Just a measly 5.4% (2.5 million) reduction in the number of smokers after 20 years. Would anyone reasonably call that a success?

Cigarette Smoking Among Adults -- United States, 1991
Cigarette Smoking Among Adults --- United States, 2001
Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults — United States, 2011

(PS. The number of smokers in 1981 was around 51 million. So today's numbers are just a 14% reduction in over 30 years!)

Kristin, do you know what numbers they did use or claimed to use in coming up with those figures? Or did they simply state the improvement without saying how they measured it? What exactly is the "smoking rate" that is claimed to have been reduced?

Thanks for all the great information!!

 

[llamainmypocket]

Sorry Scott, - read your post and can't resist. LOL

View attachment 201774

Admittedly, there is probably someone out there somewhere who believes it wholeheartedly and put it in a gvt report as "Proof".

It hasn't been proven that mammoths didn't use hairspray. I'm just concerned that people thinking that they didn't use it may encourage today's elephants.

Does that kind of language sound familiar?

I started of with the desire to disprove a negative and finished with something entirely subjective. They are logical and scientific no-no's.

 

[Boden]

I think the real crux of educating most people is that once you have done the months if not years of research on a topic, you are not able to explane a complex concept consciously enough that anyone but other experts will understand you. Most topics require limiters and once you put them in to be accurate normal people look at all those limits and exceptions and just stop absorbing the information. I refer to this as the experts dilemma.

If you really want to understand humanity, google "confirmation bias".

 

[kristin]

I think the real crux of educating most people is that once you have done the months if not years of research on a topic, you are not able to explane a complex concept consciously enough that anyone but other experts will understand you. Most topics require limiters and once you put them in to be accurate normal people look at all those limits and exceptions and just stop absorbing the information. I refer to this as the experts dilemma.

If you really want to understand humanity, google "confirmation bias".

I was kind of running into that on another thread where someone was arguing that nicotine was a "suspected carcinogen." It would have taken me hours to show the "proof" of 3 1/2 years of accumulated knowledge to him of the evidence and he'd still have had to read all of the links and learned what it all meant (I had to have it explained to me by experts what all the "science stuff" meant), so since I couldn't product such "proof," I must have been making it up or biased. It's very frustrating. There is no link to a page that will convince you of the lies the ANTZ have been telling all of these years. It's a process even I had to go through to undo all of the ANTZ brainwashing we just accepted as "fact."

 

[Robino1]

Kristin, good CASAA meeting tonight.
My god you are a busy lady!

 

[kristin]

Kristin, good CASAA meeting tonight.
My god you are a busy lady!

Thanks - and now I have to go eat my homemade black bean soup, put school clothes in the dryer for tomorrow and get my girls to sleep! LOL!

@NGAHaze - I'll get back to you on that after I get my "chores" done!

 

[bazmonkey]

Ok, here we go....

Each year 2.6 million people die within the usa which are caused by heart disease, cancers, lower respiratory disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and finally accidents.Roughly 1/5 of the population smokes and roughly 1/5 of the 2.6 million people that die are smokers. yet, it is to my surprise that smoking still causes 500,000 deaths each year according to their statistics, which is roughly 1/5 of all deaths.

You're ok so far. Surprise is to be expected with statistics.

Do they expect me to believe that smoking has a 100% mortality rate, yet they are dying at roughly the same proportion as none smokers each year? To put it frankly, I am CON-FUS-ED.

That is not what "1/5 of the deaths in the US can be attributed to smoking" suggests. Living has the 100% mortality rate, so overall, yes, we ALL die in the same proportion. What we're trying to look at is WHY they died.

What they are doing is saying smoking is related to heart disease, cancers, strokes, lower respiratory disease, diabetes and if you did die of one of these diseases and you do smoke then you must have died from smoking, diseases which coincidentally is exactly how everyone else dies.

No, not at all. How did you get to that? The other 80% probably died of many of those things, too. It's coincidentally "exactly how everyone else dies" becuase, well, we're all humans. The same things (heart disease, cancer, etc.) are deadly to all of us.

As a matter of fact, the life expectancy of a smoker is approximately 7 years less than a none smoker at just under 10%. With my limited mathematical experience I would expect the mortality rate to be closer to 10% for smokers which leads me to the conclusion that only 50,000 people die in the USA from smoking each year.

Mortality rate is not life expectancy. You seem to have them seamlessly confused here. New people pick up smoking to make up for (most) of the dying smokers, and that keeps it at about 20% of the population smoking. I have no idea what the actual mortality rate for a smoker is, but 10% sounds pretty bad if that's what it is, because by my math the precentage of the population that died in the us last year (2.5 mil for 314 mil people) is only .8%.

Don't be at all surprised to find statistics in the future for vaping that border on the absurd. Perhaps vaping will kill more people annually than the entire population of vapers. Who knows.

Its been estimated that 100,000 people each year die related to medical malpractice. The only way to protect yourself is to double check the medical communities science and speak out when it is bad science. Don't let them perscribe you with something when the science indicates that you can skip the harmful effects of smoking and prescription drugs by vaping.

Enter the aforementioned intellectural irresponsiblity. ALWAYS take what a doctor tells you to. We like to think that we know something they don't, but they went to school until they were 30 to be doctors. It's very unlikely the average person is a better judge of medicine than an average doctor. It would be stupid not to listen to them.

I'll close with an interesting problem: say there's a disease that infects 1 in 100 people and there's a test for it that's 99% accurate. You take the test and it comes out positive. What is the chance you're actually sick?

The answer? Only 50%. There's a reason a "statistician" is a special thing that people train to do correctly.

 

[zoiDman]

On the flip side of that, Obama and gun control supporters like to claim that the majority of NRA members support universal background checks. After the bill recently failed to pass, Obama accused the legislators of ignoring the will of the people, because even "a wide majority of NRA households support this legislation."

...

[rant_warning]

With Every Administration, Politics become more Theater than meaningful Law making.

It’s more about Spin.

Not passing a Bill on Firearm Background Checks was about the Most disgusting thing I have seen in a Long While. It’s not good for the Republicans. It’s not good for the Democrats. It’s not good for the Office of the President.

And Mainly, it Not Good For the American Public.

I am a Strong Supporter of the 2nd Amendment. And a Gun owner myself. Keeping Firearms out of the hands of Ineligible Individuals should be a No-Brainer.

[/end_of_rant_warning]

 

[ScottP]

[rant_warning]

With Every Administration, Politics become more Theater than meaningful Law making.

It’s more about Spin.

Not passing a Bill on Firearm Background Checks was about the Most disgusting thing I have seen in a Long While. It’s not good for the Republicans. It’s not good for the Democrats. It’s not good for the Office of the President.

And Mainly, it Not Good For the American Public.

I am a Strong Supporter of the 2nd Amendment. And a Gun owner myself. Keeping Firearms out of the hands of Ineligible Individuals should be a No-Brainer.

[/end_of_rant_warning]

I am also a gun owner and while I am not necessarily against gun registrations, I question how much good it would actually do. The shooter in Connecticut got the guns from his mother. She no doubt could have and would have passed a background check so would NOT have prevented that shooting. Not to mention that there are TONS of guns already floating around with the serial number scratched off and sold by criminals to criminals and crazies that would ignore the new registration laws just as easy as the ignore the current laws. Think about this, it is illegal to buy, sell, or possess many drugs/narcotics BUT they are still bought and sold in every city, in every state, 365 days a year. Do you really think a gun registry would prevent guns from being bought and sold illegally?

EDIT: One more thing to think about. Once you create a registry and can use that to decide who can and cannot buy and own weapons, what is to stop them from then adding criteria to the list to prevent basically anyone from owning a gun? Oh you don't like the Presidents new 100% tax policy? You must be crazy, no more guns for you. You don't think government should decide what job YOU should do for a living? You might be a militant so no more guns for you.

 

[llamainmypocket]

Enter the aforementioned intellectural irresponsiblity. ALWAYS take what a doctor tells you to. We like to think that we know something they don't, but they went to school until they were 30 to be doctors. It's very unlikely the average person is a better judge of medicine than an average doctor. It would be stupid not to listen to them.

Um... No. Decision making is scientific process based on logic. Being a doctor doesn't make him/her more able to succeed in that process. The schooling you refer to is primarily memorization and technique. When I go to the doctor I do my own research ahead of time and I assist the doctor in diagnosis by providing the information necessary for his diagnosis.

There are two things I have found to be true, #1 I assist in the accuracy of a diagnosis by providing the necessary information that is required for a conclusion, #2 I can tell the difference between a doctor who has neglected his intellect for lab results. Typically I know what's wrong before they do and if I do not then I've got it narrowed down to a few suspects which I will bring up. It is a two way conversation between two individuals who know what they are taking about. Him, because he's a doctor. Me, because I bothered to do my homework before school.

I'm pretty sure the basis for your argument is the notion that it is right to trust your doctor and there is an element of truth to that but the basis for my notion is that there is a better way which is active involvement and responsibility in my own health.

The other aspects of the argument didn't interest me because I felt like it was splitting hairs, misunderstood, or just not interesting. That does not mean I think my initial post has a high degree of quality to it. Truth be told, I anticipated is criticism and hoped for assistance in bringing it to a better state.

 

[Myk]

[rant_warning]

With Every Administration, Politics become more Theater than meaningful Law making.

It’s more about Spin.

Not passing a Bill on Firearm Background Checks was about the Most disgusting thing I have seen in a Long While. It’s not good for the Republicans. It’s not good for the Democrats. It’s not good for the Office of the President.

And Mainly, it Not Good For the American Public.

I am a Strong Supporter of the 2nd Amendment. And a Gun owner myself. Keeping Firearms out of the hands of Ineligible Individuals should be a No-Brainer.

[/end_of_rant_warning]

That's not what the bill would've done. All it would've done is make you take any gun you wanted to sell privately to a gun shop so they could get a cut of the sale.
Any criminal selling guns would've done business as usual.
Since presently NICS keeps a number of people from buying guns yet NONE of them are prosecuted expanding that non-prosecution rate would've done nothing. Anyone who can't buy a gun legally is free to keep trying until they find one that's not completely legal.

All the bill was about was harassing a group that they've decided to demonize just like they've done with smokers, which even some smokers ended up believing.
"I was a smoker myself and I think what big tobacco has done by adding rat poison to cigarettes is disgusting."
"I'm a smoker and I keep second hand smoke away from my children. I'm too lazy to look at the actual studies that showed no statistical increase in any health issues attributed to second hand smoke so I just believe their demonization of me."

 

[kristin]

So true, Myk. The cry, "Something must be done!" doesn't mean any "something" solves the problem. "Kids are smoking and dying (50 years later) from smoking-related diseases! Do something!" So they banned flavored cigarettes and demonize and tax smokers to "save the children." Yeah, that did...nothing. Background checks for law-abiding citizens privately selling a gun, intended for stopping the vast majority of gun deaths that are caused by criminals who already are prohibited from owning a gun or bought it from another criminal, will be as enforceable as smoking bans stopping stealth vaping. I'm all for better databases lowering mentally ill from getting guns, but those folks are to blame for just a tiny fraction of gun murders in the US. Plus other laws, like HIPAA, are blocking the exchange of information. Not to mention scary comments from legislators like "all vets are mentally ill and shouldn't own guns" that makes one wonder how they will use "reasonable" laws in unreasonable ways down the road - like vapers who aren't smoking willingly self-banning in non-smoking areas because they've been so brainwashed by ANTZ lies.

 

[MonkInsane]

There is one STD that kills you every-time, and that is life. Smoking just enhances the deadliness of this disease, along with other factors lol.

Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive... LOL

 

[zoiDman]

...

I'll close with an interesting problem: say there's a disease that infects 1 in 100 people and there's a test for it that's 99% accurate. You take the test and it comes out positive. What is the chance you're actually sick?

The answer? Only 50%. There's a reason a "statistician" is a special thing that people train to do correctly.

Man… It’s Bad Enough that we have to Talk about Statistics. Now we have to Actuality do Statistics?

OK. No rest for the Wicked.

--

I know that the Probability of being Sick is .01 => P(SICK) = .01

And know that the Probability of Testing Positive given your Sick is .99 => P(+|SICK) = .99

I want to find the Probability of being Sick given I Test Positive? => P(SICK|+) = ?

This can’t be that hard. (Even though I Haven’t done a Conditional Probability by hand in about 30 years.) But unfortunately, it proved to be a little Harder than I anticipated.

---

A 50 Percent Probability of P(SICK|+) sounded reasonable. Because there was a Very Small chance of being Sick and a Very Large chance of the Test being Correct. Now all it took was forming the Known’s against an Unknow.

I knew there was a way to “reverse” a conditional Probability, I just couldn't remember the Theorem. And God Only knows where a decent Stat book was in my house. So I applied what I tell any undergraduate to do when they get stuck on a Math problem, “Throw some Algebra on It”.

So I wrote out the Conditional Probability … P(+|SICK) = P(SICK and + ) / P(SICK) and got to work.

I didn’t really expect to develop the Theorem I was looking for but I knew if I could get close, I would recognize it’s form. I went thru about 3 sheets of paper with a couple of approaches before I started to think about “Total Probability”.

ie. P(SICK) + P(SICK) = 1 => P(SICK) = 1 - P(SICK)

Which lead to a recurring term of P(+|SICK) P(SICK) + P(+|SICK) P(SICK) or something Similar that keep Popping Up when I would do P(+|SICK) and P(SICK) substitutions.

I knew I had seen the form P(+|SICK) P(SICK) + P(+|SICK) P(SICK) before. It kinda looked like some kind of “Normalizing” factor since P(+|SICK) and (+|SICK), P(SICK) and P(SICK) are bound in a tug of war between 0 and 1.

Anyway, I converted to hard to read A’s and B’s and typed it into google. And there it was. Jogging 30 year old Brain Cells.

Baye’s Theorem. From there it was just Plug and Go.

I felt a Moral Victory in that even though I couldn't solve the Problem without being given the Theorem, I was able to apply enough Algebra to what I knew to see part of the Theorem that I did recognize. And then was able to find the Theorem I needed.

 

[zoiDman]

BTW – If this threads runs it’s course I’ll comment on the entire Gun Control Bill issue. I don’t really want to now because it is a Guaranteed Thread Derailleur (GTD).


For anyone who complemented on my rant about the Gun Control Bill that Didn’t Pass, please note that I said “a Bill” and not “the Bill”.


BTW2 – The example of used in my Original Post as being Gun related was purely Hypothetical. It could just have easy have been phrased as Polling people views on Birth Control at a Abortion Clinic and then applying those results to Incorrectly infer about the True Population.

 

[ScottP]

Man… It’s Bad Enough that we have to Talk about Statistics. Now we have to Actuality do Statistics?

OK. No rest for the Wicked.

--

I know that the Probability of being Sick is .01 => P(SICK) = .01

And know that the Probability of being Sick and Testing Positive is .99 => P(+|SICK) = .99

I want to find the Probability of being Sick when I Test Positive? => P(SICK|+) = ?

This can’t be that hard. (Even though I Haven’t done a Conditional Probability by hand in about 30 years.) But unfortunately, it proved to be a little Harder than I anticipated.

---

A 50 Percent Probability of P(SICK|+) sounded reasonable. Because there was a Very Small chance of being Sick and a Very Large chance of the Test being Correct. Now all it took was forming the Known’s against an Unknow.

I knew there was a way to “reverse” a conditional Probability, I just couldn't remember the Theorem. And God Only knows where a decent Stat book was in my house. So I applied what I tell any undergraduate to do when they get stuck on a Math problem, “Throw some Algebra on It”.

So I wrote out the Conditional Probability … P(+|SICK) = P(SICK and + ) / P(SICK) and got to work.

I didn’t really expect to develop the Theorem I was looking for but I knew if I could get close, I would recognize it’s form. I went thru about 3 sheets of paper with a couple of approaches before I started to think about “Total Probability”.

ie. P(SICK) + P(SICK) = 1 => P(SICK) = 1 - P(SICK)

Which lead to a recurring term of P(+|SICK) P(SICK) + P(+|SICK) P(SICK) or something Similar that keep Popping Up when I would do P(+|SICK) and P(SICK) substitutions.

I knew I had seen the form P(+|SICK) P(SICK) + P(+|SICK) P(SICK) before. It kinda looked like some kind of “Normalizing” factor since P(+|SICK) and (+|SICK), P(SICK) and P(SICK) are bound in a tug of war between 0 and 1.

Anyway, I converted to hard to read A’s and B’s and typed it into google. And there it was. Jogging 30 year old Brain Cells.

Baye’s Theorem. From there it was just Plug and Go.

I felt a Moral Victory in that even though I could solve the Problem without being given the Theorem, I was able to apply enough Algebra to what I knew to see part of the Theorem that I did recognize.

It is MUCH simpler than that. His question was "What is the chance you're actually sick?". Since you are either sick or you are not means a 50% chance. it was a trick question

Now if the question is "What is the probability that you are sick" the details become even more complex than you previously imagined with several more variables to be considered. For instance does the disease have measurable symptoms and if so do you exhibit any? If the disease has symptoms but you don't have any OR are showing different symptoms then the probability that you have it is lowered regardless of the outcome of the test.

 

[Myk]

So true, Myk. The cry, "Something must be done!" doesn't mean any "something" solves the problem. "Kids are smoking and dying (50 years later) from smoking-related diseases! Do something!" So they banned flavored cigarettes and demonize and tax smokers to "save the children." Yeah, that did...nothing. Background checks for law-abiding citizens privately selling a gun, intended for stopping the vast majority of gun deaths that are caused by criminals who already are prohibited from owning a gun or bought it from another criminal, will be as enforceable as smoking bans stopping stealth vaping. I'm all for better databases lowering mentally ill from getting guns, but those folks are to blame for just a tiny fraction of gun murders in the US. Plus other laws, like HIPAA, are blocking the exchange of information. Not to mention scary comments from legislators like "all vets are mentally ill and shouldn't own guns" that makes one wonder how they will use "reasonable" laws in unreasonable ways down the road - like vapers who aren't smoking willingly self-banning in non-smoking areas because they've been so brainwashed by ANTZ lies.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that any time it's "save the children" it's a lie and there are other reasons they want what they do and the outcome won't be to save the children. That's just a good heart string to tug.
They've pulled these same tactics against me too many times.

The mental health issue is a good one with guns. If the goal was to actually fix the problem, pointing out that mental healthcare is too expensive, there's few places to commit people and it's hard to have someone committed the fix would be to fix those things not want to dive into people's medical records (which would make the present problem worse and everyone who likes guns would avoid getting mental healthcare).
When things smell rotten they generally are.

 

[Myk]

BTW2 – The example of used in my Original Post as being Gun related was purely Hypothetical. It could just have easy have been phrased as Polling people views on Birth Control at a Abortion Clinic and then applying those results to Incorrectly infer about the True Population.

Depends on the topic. If the issue was claiming people who get abortions think a certain way an abortion clinic would be the place to go. Just like when the issue is NRA members think a certain way an NRA meeting would be the place.
I think the NRA should send out a poll asking its members if they supported THAT bill (because THAT bill is what they were claiming was supported by 90%). That would give a true result because when you blindly call people they do lie, especially on the topic of guns and the NRA.

 

[zapped]

Next time someone posts statistics about smokers dying ask them to show you statistics about those dying who ARENT smokers. I am about to lose my Aunt who's never smoked a day in her life and recently lost another friend who died of breast and lung cancer....also a non-smoker.

Exhaust emissions are many times more toxic than smoking yet Ive not heard one peep out of anyone about banning automobiles.

 

[zoiDman]

It is MUCH simpler than that. His question was "What is the chance you're actually sick?". Since you are either sick or you are not means a 50% chance. it was a trick question

....

Man... I hope you are right.

Because if you are, I could apply this line of thinking to another Stochastic Process I have been Dabbling in. Winning the Lottery.

Will I win the Lottery this Weekend?
"You either Will or you Won't. It's a 50-50 Chance."
Thank you! You just Greatly Increased My Odds of Winning!