Apathy Sketchpad

I hope you sent on those statistics to Dave. If not, send them to the national office of statistics along with Dave’s own figures to see if they can all be published together. That will go well when he does his next bout of bollocks research

That’s not possible. What we need is some kind of smoking robot whose titanium lungs can take the brunt of the the first hand smoke and leave the harmless old second hand smoke for everyone else to enjoy. Five or six of them carefully positioned around the bar would probably suffice. Perhaps they could be coin-operated.

Hey, I have a beard… ;-)

Anyway, good on you, Andrew :-)

Is “Dave Hitt” Cockney Rhyming slang for something?

I didn’t do that study, did I? Ask the people who did it that.

Shoudn’t you know if the findings are true if you are going to use them in your argument?

You cannot claim that 1000 people die from radon then say that you dont know who dies from radon because it is impossible to know. If it is impossible to know then you cannot know that 1000 people die from it. This is not a good example.

To apply the same argument to the Radon case, they can tell more people die because there are higher rates of cancer development around areas where Radon is accumulated around the house after seeping in from the ground. How could there not be? Radon randomly decays emmiting alpha particles. If you lived in a house where you were surrounded by atoms emmitting alpha particles which then have fun ripping through your DNA causing mutation and cancerous cell production you probablility is you would develop cancer. If there are more cancer case developments around these areas, theres more deaths due to cancer. Thing is people who live in Radon filled houses firstly, sometimes don’t know it, secondly, also live in the world where they are literally surrounded by carsinogens (including eating burned food, apparantly), and thirdly are human. Its quite difficult to tell where these cancer cases developed but it IS possible to notice that theres a higher rate of deaths due to cancer in Radon cases. It’s been linked. Once you know how many more cases on average than your non-radon affected town its a simple ratio calculation. Done by people who know what they’re talking about. I dont pretend to have done these studies, but I also dont pretend I know how the myogenic cardiac tissue in some people randomly spazzes out and stops working for a bit, it still happens. You dont have to know how everything works to know it still happens.

Well, no, it might not be 1000 in any given year. It might be 986, or 1023. Like I said when I first brought it up, “It would be impossible even to pinpoint the exact figure accurately.” To be honest I’d say it’s pretty unlikely that the study turned up a figure as round as 1000. Probably it’s a rounded number.

But the point is that it’s about 1000 on average. If you want to quibble over the last couple of digits (known to mathematicians as the “least significant” digits) while ignoring the one known to mathematicians as “the most significant digit”, then that to me suggests your priorities are wrong.

Lewis summed this up very well in the comments above.

“That’s a semi-valid analogy. Yet, if SHS were so dangerous that it’s killed a million people in the past twenty years, why can%u2019t the very people who make a living selling the dangers of SHS come up with three measly names?

Because there aren%u2019t any, that’s why.”

It seems to me thats exactly what he’s trying to say, bigdog

I’m sorry Andrew… but, you appear to be somewhat of a moron. Your analogies are nonsensical. The massive flaw in your dice analogy should be painfully obvious to anyone with a brain more developed than that of the average eight year old: Seeing the die rolled, and landing on six, four hundred times in a row is analogous to actually having the names of four hundred people who died from second hand smoke.

A much better analogy for your argument would go like this: I rolled a die four hundred times in a completely darkened room where it was impossible to see the result of any roll. But, I proclaim that the die landed on six four hundred times because I’m convinced that the die was loaded. Therefore, asking to see the real-world results of the four hundred rolls is stupid and pointless because, by power of proclamation, I’m right and you’re wrong!

What Dave Hitt is asking for is to actually see the results of the die roll. In fact, he’s not even asking for all four hundred results, he only wants three of four hundred! “Give me the names of victims” is the same as “Tell me what number the die landed on.” What Dave Hitt is asking for is real-world, empirical evidence that corroborates what the epidemiology “suggests.”

Dave Hitt’s “name three” challenge is a very, very strong logical argument. And, you seem to have completely missed the point of it. The argument is not really: “If you can’t find anyone who has ever died from SHS, that means that nobody ever has.” The argument is “If you can’t find anyone who has ever died from SHS, then we CAN’T KNOW if anyone ever has. And, it is SUGGESTIVE that the stats are flawed.” As such, are we justified in pushing legislation that is highly restrictive to people’s personal liberties based on what we “suspect” without any solid, empirical, independently verifiable evidence? If we’re being told that an absolute torrent of people have died from SHS, then logic dictates that it should be a simple matter to locate three of them. If we can’t locate them it doesn’t mean that what they are telling us is wrong. It may be suggestive of such, but what it really means is that we can’t really know if it’s wrong or not. And, any claims to the actual veracity of the statement becomes nothing more than conjecture. In short: You don’t know how many people have died from SHS, and until you find some actual people who have, the statistics are not empirically verifiable and it is intellectually irresponsible to make any absolute claims regarding the dangers of SHS.

In the words of Richard Feynman: �It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with the experiment, it’s wrong!� When/if you ever learn to think independently and critically, you’ll realize that one of the most important and fundamental tools in your arsenal for weighing truth is comparing what is told to you against your real-world experience. If 50,000 corroborative, epidemiological studies come out tomorrow that all say that 99% of people who have ever chewed bubble gum grow third eyes in the middle of their foreheads, I want you to think back over your life. Ask yourself: “How many people have I known that have ever chewed bubble gum? How many people have I ever heard of that have grown third eyes in the middle of their foreheads?” If you can’t come up with a number that comes anywhere close to 99%, then the safest conclusion is that the studies, no matter how ‘beautiful’ they were, no matter how ’smart’ the people who conducted them were, are most likely B.S.

How many people are they telling us have died from second hand smoke? Exactly how much related death am I able to verify? If the answers to those two questions don’t come close to matching, then the safest conclusion that a truly independent, critical thinker can come to is: “It tells me nothing.”

And, in closing, as further evidence to just how much of a moron you actually make yourself out be, it should be noted that on your web page, which opened by calling people “morons”, claim that the reason certain people disagree with you is because they’re morons (Which suggests that if they weren’t morons, they would be agreeing with you - ipso facto: Those who don’t agree with you are morons… even though you, quite irrationally, suggest the exact opposite) you later state that one of your main objections is Dave Hitt’s “arrogant attitude.” So, not only are you a moron, you’re also a hypocrite. And, more importantly: You state: “I make no claims about the dangers of second hand smoke whatsoever.” Then, in THE SAME PARAGRAPH, you state “…I’m so opposed to smoking in public, on the grounds that slowly poisoning the general public any other way is illegal.” A statement that is not only entirely self-contradictory, but also entirely false - Automobiles are not illegal, certain chemical pesticides are not illegal, alcohol (Which evaporates a class ‘A’ carcinogen into the atmosphere at many more times the CFM than the average smoker) is not illegal, certain industrial cleaning products are not illegal, etc., etc., etc.

I’m sorry. But, you sir, are demonstrably a moron!

Oh, and here is a direct quote from one of Hitt’s emails to me:

I know that it’s an impossible task. It can’t be done, even if the numbers were legitimate. But the numbers aren’t legitimate, and this is just a fun way to point it out and get people to think about the issue.

You see that? Even Dave Hitt, who originated this argument, thinks it is a invalid! Stop trying to defend it! It’s completely pointless — both sides of this argument are agreed so you, an outsider and a rather rude one at that, have adopted the orphaned position that I set out to attack, Hitt abandoned, and now nobody else believes. Stop it. You look like a fool.

And he double-spaces after a full-stop. Would you trust a man who does that? I wouldn’t.

I’m going to make one thing as clear as I can before this debate goes any further: Nowhere on this page have I made any claims about the dangers of second hand smoke. I don’t really care if it’s dangerous or not. I’d honestly rather it wasn’t because that would mean I was a little safer than I otherwise am.

My argument is not that smoking is dangerous; it is that the “name three” argument is a spurious one. Take, as an example, the statment “people with ginger hair are often over fifteen feet tall”. That statement is false. It would be impossible to name three ginger people who are over fifteen feet tall. But take as another example the statment “radon gas causes cancer”. This statement is true, but it would be equally impossible to name three people killed by radon gas.

The point here is that the “name three” argument can, if it is valid, disprove a statement which is true. Therefore it is not valid. This has no bearing on whether or not smoke is dangerous, but it has enormous bearing over whether it is right for Hitt to use the “name three” argument to defend smoking.

You say “The best your analogy can do is to argue: “This is why the epidemiology, at face value alone, is not necessarily wrong.”", and I agree with that. But Hitt is using the “name three” argument to demonstrate that the epidemiology is wrong. He repeatedly states that if nobody can name three people that smoke has killed then smoke has never killed and I have repeatedly constructed scenarios that show that logic is flawed.

If Hitt really understand statistics as well as he appears to then he ought to be able to construct an argument which is coherent and not flawed. If he doesn’t, then his criticisms of statistical surveys should probably be ignored.

Clearly you’re having trouble, so I’ll repeat something again: I am not trying to argue that second hand smoke has ever killed anyone. You say “You say people died? Show me dead people!”, and I say, “No, for fuck’s sake, how many times? I am not saying people died. I’m saying that showing you dead people is impossible if they did and if they didn’t, so the fact that I can’t proves nothing!”.

And for reference, my point is not “that the “name three” argument isn’t PROOF the conclusion is wrong”. My point is that the “name three” argument doesn’t even suggest the epidimiology is wrong.

Okay. Perhaps you’re not a moron. Perhaps you’re a perfectly intelligent person with some kind of major mental block when it comes to logic and statistics. I’m sure you’re good at cryptic crosswords or geography or something.

QUOTE: “I’m going to make one thing as clear as I can before this debate goes any further: Nowhere on this page have I made any claims about the dangers of second hand smoke.”

Quote: “…I’m so opposed to smoking in public, on the grounds that slowly poisoning the general public any other way is illegal…”

Ooook, fine!?!?!?

Quote: “You say “You say people died? Show me dead people!”, and I say, “No, for fuck’s sake, how many times? I am not saying people died. I’m saying that showing you dead people is impossible if they did and if they didn’t, so the fact that I can’t proves nothing!”.

Of course it proves nothing. I’ve already said that. But, that doesn’t invalidate the argument any. An argument doesn’t have to provide proof of something in order to be a valid argument. The fact that you can’t show me dead people argues that all you have is speculation and conjecture based on highly suspect epidemiology. It’s up to you to counter that argument, and so far your only counter is “You can’t prove that it’s wrong!” Well “You can’t prove that it’s wrong” is not an argument.

The epidemiology makes a claim. The “name three” argument asks for tangible evidence to support that claim. Saying “It’s impossible to provide such tangible evidence” does not invalidate the request.

The fact of the matter is, if you can’t show me dead people, then you can’t know if anyone has ever died. Period! You can have your speculations, but you can’t know. And, saying “the ’show me dead people’ argument is invalid because I can’t show you dead people.” is patently absurd. It flies in the face of the most fundamental tenets of logic. The argument remains valid, and the more dead people there are supposed to be, the more valid the argument becomes. You’ve done nothing to show otherwise. And, yes, the same holds true for Radon gas. The difference is, the epidemiology that draws the conclusions regarding Radon isn’t nearly as suspect.

Regardless of what you want the argument to be, the issue is much bigger. Health authorities present the epidemiology as unquestionable fact. They say X amount of people ARE dying every day because of this. (Not we “suspect”, or have “reason to believe”) They treat the numbers almost as divinely revealed truth. They attempt to convince (and are frighteningly successful at it) the general public that it is an unquestionable fact that people ARE dying in droves as a direct result of their exposure to SHS, and this is their justification for their discriminatory practices and the stripping of liberties from people. The “name three” argument is valid in showing that there’s nothing unquestionable about it. It is little more than highly suspect speculation and conjecture based on highly suspect epidemiology. If they KNOW that X amount of people have died, then they MUST have a body count. If they can’t provide any of those bodies, it is suggestive that they don’t have a body count. If they don’t have a body count, then they don’t KNOW. If they don’t know, and are saying that they do, they are engaged in deception. It’s simple logic, and saying “They can’t provide bodies, therefore they don’t have to, therefore the request for them to do so is invalid.” is ridiculous. It does nothing to alter the fact that the “name three” argument demonstrates that the numbers are speculative numbers being presented as fact.

I don’t know how to put it in simpler terms… If you want a reasonable person to believe that the existence of X amount of dead people is fact, then you HAVE to provide the dead people. There’s no other way to do it. No amount of conjecture, inference, belief, estimation, etc. will work. Until you do provide the dead people, all you have is speculation. Saying “It’s impossible to provide the dead people.” ONLY states that it’s impossible to ever move it out of the realm of speculation. And, since that speculation is derived from highly suspect epidemiology, the speculation itself must be seen as highly suspect. Until such time as you provide the bodies, that doesn’t change and the argument remains a valid one.

[quotes]

Ooook, fine!?!?!?

Fair point, but the thing is about cigarette smoke, it contains about 70 different toxins. Obviously it is poisonous; the only question is, is it toxic enough that we should worry about it? Personally, I’m prepared to accept a little poison in exchange for transport and electricity, but I’m not prepared to accept it just because someone in the same bar as me has a dangerous drug habit they want to indulge in public. I think that’s spectactularly selfish of them. So I’m opposed to smoke because it’s poisonous, but not necessarily because it’s dangerous, if you follow.

Of course it proves nothing. I’ve already said that. But, that doesn’t invalidate the argument any. An argument doesn’t have to provide proof of something in order to be a valid argument.
What? Of course it invalidates the argument! If the argument doesn’t provide proof of something, what the hell is it for? “Name three” is perhaps useful as an analogy, or maybe as a hook or a snide remark or an aside, but Hitt is using it as a logical argument and it simply isn’t one.

It does nothing to alter the fact that the “name three” argument demonstrates that the numbers are speculative numbers being presented as fact.
That’s exactly my point: these are not “speculative” numbers. Statistics, and therefore fields such as epidemiology which rely on statistics, cannot ever definitively prove anything. They deal with error margins and measures of certainty. You end up with a result that says there is an X% chance that smoke kills, say, a thousand people a year, a Y% chance it kills a hundred, and whatever. Once you have a lot of independant studies that all give a fairly high value for X or Y you quote the results as fact because they’re the best facts you have, and arguing with them is petty at best unless you have a bunch of other studies that have opposing conclusions. Whether or not the studies in this specific case, that of second hand smoke, were all properly done and reported honestly is a seperate issue, and one which I don’t pretend to know enough about to make claims about, but the fact remains that that is how statistics is done (or should be), and even when they are you can’t name three. You’re not supposed to be able to name three. Criticising statistics for not giving a list of names is like criticising a car for not being able to fly. Sure, it’d be great if it could, but it can’t and was never supposed to.

What you are arguing is, essentially, a philosophical point called The Problem Of Induction. Hume demonstrated it in the 18th century by saying the statement “all swans we have seen are white, therefore all swans are white” couldn’t be proved unless you see all the swans in the world. (The point was further hammered home a species of black Swan was discovered - the example tends to be “all ravens are black” now instead.)

[Watch as I intimidate him with detailed background knowledge I mostly got off Wikipedia! Hehe. Don't tell him!]

I am not going to sit here and argue philosophy with you because we will be here for ever. The point here is that if you have a bunch of studies that all say “there is a 98% chance that second hand smoke kills at least X people a year” then it is not dishonest to state that figure as a fact because the alternative is to show a graph of deaths versus likelyhood and that will only mean anything to mathematicians. It’s gibberish to the man in the street. Generally the detailed version of the results is somewhere in the small print, like on toothpaste adverts where they say “This toothpaste reduces plaque by 67%” and then have the source of that figure in little white letters at the bottom of the screen.

That last 2% is Hume saying “ah, but it could just be coincidence. There could be a whole flock of yellow ravens just around the corner, all sat packing spheres into a box with a 77% packing fraction and breathing second hand smoke from green swans and suffering no ill effects”. And there could. Perhaps all that dark matter scientists can’t find is a flock of Invisible Pink Space-Ravens. But how likely is that, really? Well, in this example, it’s roughly as likely as winning something on the lottery on Wednesday.

But that is basically what Hitt is saying when he repeatedly states or implies “you can’t even name three people killed by second hand smoke and therefore there aren’t any“. That is the part I have a problem with. Until the word “and” all he’s saying is that the figures we have for smoke related diseases all carry heavy error margins with them, which of course they do and it’s wise to bear that in mind, and that part of the “name three” argument is quite a clever way to make that point. But when you add “therefore there aren’t any” the statement turns into “it can’t be proven, therefore it isn’t true”, which, although a reasonable sounding statement, turns out to be wrong. In fact, there are a great many things that are true but can’t be proven. Paradoxically, this has been proven, although it’s perhaps worth noting that we couldn’t name three things that are true but haven’t been proven because by definition we can’t know that they’re true without proving them.

Have you heard of a thing called “the halting problem”? Essentially, it is a question that has been mathematically shown to be unanswerable. It asks “will this computer programme ever end?”, and there’s no way to know without running it and seeing what happens, and even if you do that, as long as it’s still running you don’t know if it will end today, tomorrow, or never. So it’s impossible to prove that a programme won’t halt and therefore it is, in the general case, impossible to answer the question, but there is still an answer; there must be, because it’s a question about mathematics and all things are defined in mathematics, even if we can’t ever know what the definition is. This shows us that some things are true but cannot be proven, in which case expecting such definitive and simplistic proof as a list of dead people is not always reasonable, and the fact that such proof cannot be identified does nothing to suggest that this proof does not exist. Second hand smoke does contain toxins (we know this from direct analysis of said smoke), and is more-or-less certainly responsible for at least three deaths over the last fifty years. I mean, even tea cosies have killed more people than that, so that’s not to say it’s dangerous, just that there will be three people out there somewhere who were, however improbably, killed by it. And those people had names, and names can be listed and lists can be emailed to people called Dave. This is all known fact. The fact that it’s not possible to identify which names should go on the list doesn’t alter the fact that the names exist.

Essentially, Hitt is saying “all ravens we have seen so far are black, therefore the yellow ones must be hiding”, and while Occam’s Razor should tell you everything you need to know about that idea, he’s saying it in an abstract way so that the flaw in the logic is not obvious. People reading his page would be forgiven for thinking he had managed to prove smoke wasn’t dangerous (or at least to prove that we had no evidence that it was) using his “name three” argument, and if he’s doing that on purpose, which I have good reason to believe that he is, then that is dishonest of him. This is compounded by the fact that he repeatedly accuses everyone else of dishonesty and the fact that I, and probably others, have shown him it is dishonest and he still continues to spout his lies. Hence, he’s a twat. You see how this works, surely?

I wonder if the pro-Hitt comments will stop now that posting a comment requires you to have at least enough understanding of maths to add two numbers…

Your an idiot. Anyone who has any eductaion realizes the use of statistics is a valid measure of tendency. For you just to call someone a twat because you don’t understand the reasoning proves your ignorance.

By the way, try spell check next time you publish your site.

paul (with no capital P), when you tell someone to spell check their text you should probably start the post with the correct form of “you’re.” It makes me wonder exactly how much education you must have had to have made such a stupid mistake. We all agree statistics are a valid measure of tendency, assuming they’re valid and free from bias, infact that’s somewhat the point. Andrew is arguing that “name three” is the most stupid way of trying to disprove statistics to have ever been thought up.

What puzzles me about Dave Hitt’s weird argments is why he thinks secondhand smoke is so wonderful, regardless of whether someone can name 3 persons who absolutely died from it or not. The nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke without their consent have a valid belief that their risk of developing health problems is increased by this involuntary exposure. Most recently, their concerns are supported by an extensive review of the scientific literature by the State of California. Even without knowing the exact probability of this health risk, or the exact shape of the cause-effect curve, most nonsmokers have concluded they do not want to subjected to this risk without their consent. Hence, a strong case can be made for restricting smoking in public places, which is clearly more injurious to the health than other common restricted acts, such as spitting or uninating in public. Again, the most puzzling question is why Dave Hitt has chosen to champion the unfettered exposure of everyone to secondhand smoke. One can only assume that Dave Hitt receives funding from the Tobacco Industry to spread his irrational position that the 20% of the people (the smokers) should be allowed to expose the 80% of people who are not smokers to several thousand pollutants wherever and whenever the smokers want. Regardless of the irrational arguments by tobacco industry puppets, it is clear that the nonsokers have decided, “We’re not going to take this anymore!”, and the Nation has adopted a wise course of enacting smoking restrictions in public places with no turning back.

Wayne: I find these statements of yours very curious:

#1: “Even without knowing the exact probability of this health risk, or the exact shape of the cause-effect curve, most nonsmokers have concluded they do not want to subjected to this risk without their consent.”

#2: “One can only assume that Dave Hitt receives funding from the Tobacco Industry to spread his irrational position that the 20% of the people (the smokers) should be allowed to expose the 80% of people who are not smokers to several thousand pollutants wherever and whenever the smokers want.”

I ask you, how does a nonsmoker give his or her consent to being exposed to SHS? I always thought that if you walk into a bar, in which you know people are smoking, you have given your consent to SHS exposure. If that does not constitute consent, then please tell me how a nonsmoker can give consent.

Secondly, I don’t believe Dave Hitt would ever argue that smokers should be allowed to smoke “wherever and whenever the smokers want”. For example, no one would argue that a smoker should be allowed to smoke inside YOUR house. Further, I think most people would agree that governments can decide whether smoking is allowed or not on GOVERNMENT property. Dave Hitt would probably argue that the issue of smoking should be decided by the property owner. You keep talking about “public places”, but I suspect you really mean privately-owned places, like bars and restaurants.

It is easy to respond to these comments. First, active smoking in a bar exposes everyone else — smokers and nonsmokers alike - to the smoker’s pollution. Because of the high fine particle emission rate of each cigarette — 1.4 mg/min — the concentarionts in bars readily reach unusally high levels above 100 micrograms per cubic meter, contaminating the air for everyone in the room, including children, workers, and nonsmokers. (There are numerous scientific papers in the peer-reviewed literature on cigarette emission rates and the incredibly high concentrations measured in bars, sports taverns, and restaurants with active smokers, which drop to negligible levels when the smoking is restricted.) To summarize, the smokers’ personal actions ruin the air quality for everyone present, making it impossible for anyone to visit without inhaling high concentrations of fine particles into their lungs or absorbing CO into the blood. It is not clear why 20% of the population feel they have a right to expose the other 80% to the same pollutants at excessive concentraiotns that would not be permited for health reasons in outdoor air by federal law (i.e., the Clean Air Act). Nor should smokers have a monopoly on contaminating the air in all the bars and restaurants so no one else can visit. The smoker creates the pollution, so the smoker should be required to keep the smoke pollution to himself — by restricting the smoking to his own home.

On the second point, I believe Dave Hitt believes that smokers should be allowed to smoke “wherever and whenever the smokers want” in PUBLIC PLACES, not just in their homes. The question is whether the smoker has a right to contaminate the air of places open to the general public, which includes not just bars but also sports taverns, restaurants, hotel lobbies, elevators, restaurant patios, stores, casinos, church bingo games, etc. When this entire list is considered, the nonsmokers, which are in the clear majority (i.e., 80%), will have no place to go where they can avoid the pollutants at the unhealthful levels generated by the smokers. (By “unhealthful level” I specifically mean exceeding a score of “100″ on EPA’s nationwide Pollutants Standards Index.) A total of 16 states have passed restrictions on smoking, including California and New York. The trend toward limiting secondhand smoke exposure is worldwide, with Italy pasisng laws restricitng smoking in public places in 2005 and France passing similar laws in 2006. The trend is clear. Dave Hitt’s views do not seem to be gaining support anywhere. I rest my case.

First of all, neither Wayne nor Andrew answered my question. How does a nonsmoker give his or her “consent” to SHS exposure? If you can describe instances in which exposure is “involuntary” and “without consent”, surely you can describe when exposure is “voluntary” and “with consent”. Come on. Give it a try.

Second, I find Andrew’s argument, that walking into a bar and being exposed to SHS is “coercion”, a bit over the top. No one is (or has ever been) prohibited from opening up their own smoke-free bar. And no one is forced into a smoker-friendly bar at gunpoint. A customer certainly does not HAVE to be in a bar; there are no necessities of life inside. And the fact that the market currently doesn’t provide what you want on every street corner doesn’t prove you’re being “coerced” when you walk into a smokey bar. That’s just silly.

Third, I must take issue with Andrew’s last point. I think MOST people who work in bars do so because they really like it. They like the tips. They like meeting people. And based on many personal observations, the vast majority of them smoke.

I’ll agree that most people don’t and can’t run their own businesses, so they have to seek employment from others. That would justify some sort of general workplace smoking ban–based not on health concerns, but general worker “comfort” (a lot of people find SHS intolerably annoying). But, it would not justify a comprehensive workplace smoking ban with no exemptions. I think most workplaces should be allowed to have an indoor smoking lounge. And businesses in the hospitality industry, whose “product” is providing a venue for smoking (such as bars) should also be exempt.

I would bet that, at present, about 97% of all private businesses are smoke-free. Anyone who doesn’t like SHS can easily avoid it 100% of the time, and anyone who wants “protection” from SHS already has it, provided they can resist the urge to walk into (or seek employment at) the nearest smoker-friendly tavern.

Andrew, so in your world, nonsmokers should have a veto over smoking everywhere and always? Why?

I’m not surprised you don’t hear “do you mind if I smoke” anymore. I think smokers are pretty fed up with the current attitudes against them, and have so few places in which to smoke anymore, that they’re not going to ask anyone around them if they’d like to exercise the type of veto against smoking that you seem to believe nonsmokers should have.

Nowadays, most nonsmokers are itching to have the government screw smokers over by imposing 100% smoking bans everywhere, so why would smokers go out of their way to be nice to nonsmokers in the few places they’re still allowed to smoke? What goes around comes around.

OK. So your position is that SHS is dangerous? I think we need to discuss who has the burden of proof on this issue.

I know in an earlier post, you didn’t think a burden of proof should be imposed on either side of this debate. That’s true, if the only issue is an academic one (i.e., is SHS dangerous or not?). But when we’re talking about using the government’s police power to take away the private property rights of a bar owner (i.e., the right to decide whether or not to allow smoking in the bar), I do think your side needs to bear the burden of proof on this issue.

So, unless you can defend the science of the anti-smokers on SHS, then you have to back off on asserting any right to dictate smoking policies to bar owners.

That is the issue with smoking bans. In order to overturn the private property rights of the bar owners, you must prove that SHS is dangerous. Asserting that it “might” be dangerous isn’t enough. If you are simply “worried” about the health effects of SHS, but are not prepared to prove that SHS is dangerous, it seems that the courteous thing for you to do is to leave the bars (and smokers) alone.

Bear the burden of proof? Okay. Have you tried searching PubMed for scientific papers on the subject? It’s already been proven that second hand smoke is dangerous. Whoever has the burden of proof, it is not required for me to drag up the individual papers every time I want to write anything on the subject just in case someone challenges it. I can just cite the accepted fact that the smoke is toxic and treat it as a given.

Right, that was easy. (Although I don’t accept that we should bear the burden of proof, because if we do then what’s to stop you starting burning tyres or injecting us with cyanide? Would we then have to run away and do science until we’ve proven they’re dangerous, whereupon you could just start throwing mouldy food at us and vomiting recreationally in supermarkets? I mean, I know there’s no reason to assume that you would do that, but the principle is sound: if you want to pump known toxins into our air then I think it’s reasonable that you should be able to prove it won’t kill us first.)

In reply to your second post, if you ask me over to your house then light up without even asking me if it’s OK, then you’re a really shitty host. If you want to be a shitty host then that’s your prerogative, but you’re not going to win the £1000 prize on Friday’s programme, and your guests will choose a different host for the next meeting.

Because they can, you see. They can’t just choose to go to a non-smoking bar for their next drink, because the bloody things don’t exist.

Wow, Andrew. I guess I should ignore everything that came before on this thread? What about all the discussion about relative risks of less than 2.0? Does your evidence meet or beat this scientific threshold?

Is the 1992 USEPA study, with its RR of 1.19, part of your proof? Is the fact that the USEPA study was thrown out of court by a U.S. District Court in 1998 as junk science part of your consideration?

How about the 1998 World Health Organization study, which WHO wanted to bury after it was completed, because it showed no connection between SHS and lung cancer (and even had a quirky finding that children exposed to SHS were LESS like to develop lung cancer later in life)? Is that part of your proof?

What about the most comprehensive study to date, published in the May 17, 2003 issue of the British Medical Journal, which used American Cancer Society data on more than 118,000 Californians from 1960 to 1998, and which concluded there is no causal connection between SHS and lung cancer? Did you consider that? Can you ignore that study?

Andrew, all you can demonstrate right now is that there are some studies out there with inconclusive findings on the health effects of SHS. Nothing definitive. Sorry, you haven’t met your burden of proof.

The definition of a Puritanism is that aweful feeling deep down inside, that someone, somewhere, somehow might be having a good time. This seems to describe the anti-smokers very well when it comes to banning smoking EVERYWHERE.

This points raised by SteveLee remind me of an anology in which 20% of the people are addicted to a peculiar drug that causes them to uninate frequently in an uncontrolled manner. Whenever they go swimming in a public pool, they must pee in the pool every 15 minutes due to their drug addiction. Many of the other nonadicted swimmers in the same pool object to being exposed to the adicted persons’ pee, and they object to the color of the pool water turning yellow (i.e., analogous to a smoky room) and violating health-based water quality standards (analogous to federal air quality standards). Some of the nonadicted persons find they get terribly sick from the pee in the pool water, and they raise concerns about their own health and the health of their children. Unfortunately, the adicted persons (the smokers) claim they have a right to pee in public swimming pools and their peeing rights should not be abridged, because of some inalienable personal freedom to pee in public pools that they alone posesss. They respond, “We enjoy peeing in the pools, and we won’t stop unless you prove with 100% certainty that exposure to our pee is a public health problem for every swimmer.” Wise public policy and common sense dictate that the adicted persons do not have an inalienable right to pee in public swimming pools, and the children and adults who want to swim there should not be exposed to other peoples’ uriine. Should the other swimmers not be able to use a public pool, simply because the peeing persons are adicted and have the problem that they contaminate the water, making it turn yellow?

Regarding the science of whether secondhand smoke is hazardous to one’s health, which SteveLee appears to want to debate, one must wonder, “Is he a scientist? We scientists have a forum for carrying out such debates. The health risks from the pollutants in secondhand smoke have been widely evaluated hundreds of scientists, and no brief email exchange can contribute much to the science, nor is it the proper forum for carring out such debates. Of special interest in this regard are the federal Air Quality Criteria Documents published by EPA and updated every few years, which are typically 500 pages in length and review the latest available science in considerable detail. Several of the pollutants covered by these documents are major components of secondhand smoke. Outside panels of science advisory boards review these documents and make recommendations on which health-based air quality standards ultimately are adopted for the Nation. Does SeveLee believe he knows more about the science than these reveiw panels? After the scientific review process, proposed standards are open to widespread public comment, and all the comments submited by members of the public are responded to. If SteveLee does know more than these scientists and review panels, then the proper forum is for him to write a letter to the peer reviewed journals that publish the originqal papers indicating which scientific investigators or studies have made errors and the significance of these errors. If his technical points are valid, then I am certain his comments will be published, and the offending scientists will respond.

Finally, I would not abridge the freedom of any smoker who wishes to smoke in their own home, because I think an addicted person who needs to pee endlessly should pee at home. I do, however, have concerns about children living in the home of a smoker, since exposing children to secondhand smoke can be viewed as a form of child abuse. I believe it is commonly accepted that the state has right to intervene in other forms of child abuse. If there are no children present, however, then I believe the smoker has a right to smoke at home, staining the interior color of his walls with his own yellow-brown nicotine to his heart’s content.

Wayne. I guess you and I are just different. When you see a yellow swimming pool, you dive in and complain about it afterwards. But I skip the first part.

“Second hand smoke does not double the risk of death. Expecting that a study should show a relative risk above 2 is therefore stupid.”

Really? I guess you haven’t actually read anything on Dave Hitt’s website. Here’s what he points out:

Fact: As a rule of thumb, an RR of at least 2.0 is necessary to indicate a cause and effect relationship, and a RR of 3.0 is preferred.

“As a general rule of thumb, we are looking for a relative risk of 3 or more before accepting a paper for publication.” - Marcia Angell, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine”

“My basic rule is if the relative risk isn’t at least 3 or 4, forget it.” - Robert Temple, director of drug evaluation at the Food and Drug Administration.

“Relative risks of less than 2 are considered small and are usually difficult to interpret. Such increases may be due to chance, statistical bias, or the effect of confounding factors that are sometimes not evident.” - The National Cancer Institute.

Are the quoted people and organizations all “stupid”?

Andrew, let me help you out with my question about your right to veto smoking in my house. You don’t have such a veto because it’s my house, not yours. If you accept that principle, then you need to accept the same result when it comes to privately-owned bars and taverns. They’re not your property.

But in your world, your desire to go out and drink, and have everything EXACTLY the way you want it, is paramount and trumps the bar owners’ private property rights.

“If you combine it with lab-based studies that show tobacco smoke contains 4,000 toxins and 69 carcinogens, then it becomes (more) conclusive.”

Andrew, what substance do you suppose can cause dangerous indoor concentrations of the following toxins and carcinogens (among others) when burned?:

dibutyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, toluene, styrene, benzene, ethyl benzene, naphthalene, acetylaldehyde, benzaldehyde, benzene-ethanol, 2-butanone (methyl ethyl ketone), and aerosolized lead?

The answer is scented candle