44 replies to this topic

[andrew123456]

There are a number of (http://www.medquit.com) Natural ways to quit smoking . Among them Aromatherapy is an ancient art which uses plant, herb oils and flowers. The art of inhaling essentials oils to heal our bodies or influence emotions dates back to thousands of years. The Royal families of ancient Egypt used aromatic oils for various treatments. The Toltecs and Aztecs of pre-Columbian Mexico had special houses built of stone to treat physical and mental disturbances with steamy herb vapors. Science today confirms that scent can arouse feelings, suppress urges and also provide cure for physical ailments.

The sense of smell is guided by the olfactory nerve receptors and it is the only one of the senses which is directly connected to the brain. The olfactory receptors have tiny hair like nerves which capture the aroma particles and transfer the message directly to the brain. When inhaled, the scent molecules directly reach the olfactory system of the brain bypassing the blood. They reach the limbic system which controls emotions, memory, stress response, metabolic function and sexual arousal. Hence the effects of aromatherapy are almost immediate and is non-habit forming. Aromatherapy is also free from any side effects.

There are aromatherapy combinations which are known to induce a feeling of calmness and help to combat the effects of nicotine addiction. Natural quit smoking remedies utilize aromatherapy where herbs, oils, plants and flowers are distilled and packed into balanced solutions which help detoxifies the body and brings back the balance and harmony. Black pepper oil is known to ease the cravings of smokers. A few drops of Lavender essential oil help calm nerves when the smoker becomes agitated with the withdrawal symptoms.

Edited by maxwatt, 07 November 2010 - 12:45 AM.

[Joseph_Dantes]

Before you quit smoking, you should read the hard animal science. Smoking extends the lifespan of animals in properly controlled studies by 20%.

The anti-smoking case is built on correlational epidemiological studies, nothing more. Highly suspect.

Read the forum posts by "nightlight" for much, much more. Google "nightlight forum smoking."

[churchill]

Before you quit smoking, you should read the hard animal science. Smoking extends the lifespan of animals in properly controlled studies by 20%.

The anti-smoking case is built on correlational epidemiological studies, nothing more. Highly suspect.

Read the forum posts by "nightlight" for much, much more. Google "nightlight forum smoking."

The anti smoking case is built on a lot of firm evidence.

Can you cite some of the animal studies you are referring to. From reading on the subject the tobacco companies funded a ton of these studies so I want to check you are not referring to ones they funded.

How do you explain that smokers have lower life expectancies than non smokers?
http://medicolegal.t...m/pearl1938.htm

How do you explain this, which directly contradicts your premise.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC1422715/

How do you explain that when a smoker quits smoking their life expectancy goes back to pretty much what it should have been if they had not smoked (as long as they quit early enough)?

[adamh]

How is it that smell goes "directly" to the brain and sound, sight and so on do not? Don't the smell signals travel along nerve fibers same as other senses?

[Joseph_Dantes]

Very disappointing Churchill. You apparently do not know the difference between correlational studies and a hard experiment (actual science).

An experiment is where you have a control group and test a variable by isolating it.

Animal experiments have been performed on dogs and hamsters, perhaps others. I am not going to do the reading for you. Google what I suggested.

[churchill]

Very disappointing Churchill. You apparently do not know the difference between correlational studies and a hard experiment (actual science).

An experiment is where you have a control group and test a variable by isolating it.

Animal experiments have been performed on dogs and hamsters, perhaps others. I am not going to do the reading for you. Google what I suggested.

Just because an experiment has a control group and one variable is isolated does not in of itself make for an experiment which will enable you to identify correlation vs causation, at the very least you have the problem of the inherent biases of the experimenter. Causation can only every be inferred it cannot be known.

You cannot extrapolate non human experiments and say that the same will occur in humans. This is basic science.

Explain to me why smoking is correlated with an early death, if you believe that it is not the smoking itself which causes this then what exactly is it that is causing the early death?

Disappointing that you cite zero evidence. Disappointing that you don't even attempt to refute what I wrote. I am happy to have a discussion about this but if you are not even willing to meet me half way, all I can assume is that you are the worlds biggest smoking troll.

[Joseph_Dantes]

Churchill, you've just argued that you will not accept a hard scientific experiment as evidence of causation. I find that argument remarkably stupid coming from someone who claims the anti-smoking case has lots of "firm evidence."

Why is smoking correlated with an early death?

Why are painkillers correlated with an early death? Why are anxiolytics correlated with depression?

There are great complexities in the self selection of smokers.

Lung cancer incidence internationally, in e.g. Japan, does not match American levels despite higher rates of smoking.

The strong correlations between smoking and early death in America suggest several possibilities:
1. smoking is a powerful treatment for things that are killing people, causing sick people to self-select into smoking,
2. smoking is killing people,
3. smoking is an unrelated result of causes that are killing people.
4. something connected with smoking, other than smoking itself, is killing people

One then looks at hard experiments determine which is the truth. Again I commend you to Google. Otherwise I'm going to keep running circles around you.

FYI, I think 1, 2, 3, and 4 have some validity.
1: The main truth. Demonstrated in animal studies and human studies of industrial pollution's effect on smokers vs non-smokers, to name two examples.
2. More true in the modern day. Perverse incentives abound after the tobacco settlements, allowing cigarette companies to pump their product full of addictive and deadly chemicals.
3. Tobacco is a powerful biochemical anxiolytic, but the simple gesture and act of smoking has its own anxiety relieving effects, which self-selects for anxious and addictive people
4. Smokers who did not believe tobacco would kill them fared far better than smokers who believed anti-smoking propaganda but continued to smoke. This is the "death curse" effect; when someone believes they will die, their body can make it real via the emotions.

[ajnast4r]

Before you quit smoking, you should read the hard animal science. Smoking extends the lifespan of animals in properly controlled studies by 20%.

The anti-smoking case is built on correlational epidemiological studies, nothing more. Highly suspect.

Read the forum posts by "nightlight" for much, much more. Google "nightlight forum smoking."

this is the dumbest post i have ever seen. garbage. it doesnt belong on a forum like this.

i'll leave this thread with a post by skotkonung, who thoroughly dismantled nightlights unbelievably stupid arguments for smoking.

If you are to accept epidemiology (i.e. your Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish statistics), you must also accept the overwhelming data showing that lifespan is decreased in smokers. You must also accept the plethora of studies showing that smoking worsens virtually all markers of longevity and health. Regarding centenarians, while there may have been a few notable smokers, the majority do not (and usually never have) smoke. Results are showing that some cultures live longer than others despite a high prevalence of smoking are obviously confounded by other habits or regional variances in phenotypes.

And the antiquated animal (read: hamster) studies that Nightlight likes to tout? Junk. There is a reason why they aren't even peer reviewed. But I digress, hamsters almost always die of amyloidosis. Nicotine prevents amyloidosis. Smoking extends hamster lifespan, in some instances, because it prevents their primary cause of death. Who knows what else could be protecting these small animals? It seems reasonable to assume rodents might have some protective mechanism against brush fires, etc. At any rate, these results have obviously not translated into humans given the multitude of other health problems wrought by smoking (although it does present some novel ideas for mitigating amyloidosis).

Did I mention that Nightlight likes to quote tobacco lobbyists as primary sources for supporting smoking? That just stinks of crooked.

Edited by ajnast4r, 10 November 2010 - 08:13 AM.

[Joseph_Dantes]

I am always open to cogent answers to Nightlife, since I am relying heavily on him to make a significant (life or death) decision.

However, your quoted argument is laughable as a rebuttal. It's the weakness of the arguments against Nightlight that eventually drove me to accept that smoking is healthy, against my initial judgment.

I will answer your quoted argument point by point.

"If you are to accept epidemiology (i.e. your Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish statistics), you must also accept the overwhelming data showing that lifespan is decreased in smokers."

No. Dumb. Nightlight quotes these to show the faultiness and contradictory nature of the epidemiological evidence against smoking. He does not quote it out of a belief in the validity of epidemiology. He is rebutting, not presenting his affirmative case. It is the pro-smoking crowd who relies on epidemiology who must accept the international smoking correlations, or else reject the American/British correlations. Not the other way around. You're showing basic debating incompetence.

"You must also accept the plethora of studies showing that smoking worsens virtually all markers of longevity and health."

More correlational junk.

"Regarding centenarians, while there may have been a few notable smokers, the majority do not (and usually never have) smoke."

If true, unsurprising, since the majority of the normal population doesn't smoke. Yawn.

"Results are showing that some cultures live longer than others despite a high prevalence of smoking are obviously confounded by other habits or regional variances in phenotypes."

Reverse that statement to apply to shorter-lived cultures and you have the reason why epidemiology is so unreliable. Congratulations on eviscerating your own case.

"And the antiquated animal (read: hamster) studies that Nightlight likes to tout? Junk. There is a reason why they aren't even peer reviewed."

Then do a study and peer review it. It's not as if there's a government medical tobacco industrial complex aligned against such a thing happening. Oh, wait...

"But I digress, hamsters almost always die of amyloidosis. Nicotine prevents amyloidosis. Smoking extends hamster lifespan, in some instances, because it prevents their primary cause of death."

What, a health benefit of smoking? Horrors. Well surely there's only the one. And they've also studied dogs, IIRC.

By all means, do a study using monkies. Shouldn't be hard.

"Who knows what else could be protecting these small animals? It seems reasonable to assume rodents might have some protective mechanism against brush fires, etc."

Hahaha, did you just argue that rodents can smoke because of their frequent exposure to brush fires in the wild? Watch Little House on the Prarie... does that look like the perpetually smouldering landscape of Gehenna to you? Will you never tire of embarrassing yourself out of irrational emotional reaction to smoking?

"At any rate, these results have obviously not translated into humans given the multitude of other health problems wrought by smoking (although it does present some novel ideas for mitigating amyloidosis)."

Nice theory, why don't you do a hard experiment to isolate amyloidosis and retest tobacco's influence? Oh that's right, the anti-smoking case rests on what "everyone" knows and selective use of epidemiological statistics, not hard experiments. Pardon me, carry on.

"Did I mention that Nightlight likes to quote tobacco lobbyists as primary sources for supporting smoking? That just stinks of crooked."

And the anti-smoking case was built by people such as a shill for chemical companies looking to avoid pollution liability, government looking to cover up health hazards of aerial atomic tests, and a confused establishment looking for the causes of a rise in myriad health disorders arising due to increased pollution and industrialization of diet.

Everyone's dirty and biased, everyone's paid by someone, so let's examine the evidence and stop pretending human beings somehow gain sainthood when they don a white lab coat and win a government grant.

So far you haven't made me break a sweat or read a study. I didn't even have to edit this. See if you can do better, really you're boring me.

[Nootropic Cat]

Joseph,

From what I gather Nightlight made the case that the alleged beneficial effects are contingent on the combined action of the constituents of tobacco smoke, not just nicotine, right? I'm not knowledgeable enough to have formed an opinion on any of this, but would you agree that it would be preferable to somehow ingest that combination of substances in a way that didn't involve inhaling smoke particles?

[Joseph_Dantes]

TripleHelix, my feeling is that smoking is a complex delivery mechanism regulated by biofeedback. Just attempting to mimic the composition of beneficial agents would be nigh impossible, much less the rhythms of delivery.

I'm not about to try it. I had enough trouble inductively finding a paleo-ish diet that worked for me. I'm pretty confident that attempting to do what you're suggesting involves a non-negligible risk of death.

Re your first question, yes, it is far more than just a matter of nicotine. Nicotine patches don't come anywhere near smoking's benefits, and I am leery of their side effects.

[rwac]

inhaling smoke particles?

Inhaling smoke particles might well be part of that effect (hormesis).

[ajnast4r]

what this boils down to is do you have peer reviewed literature that advises smoking cigarettes may be beneficial in humans?

Edited by ajnast4r, 11 November 2010 - 04:06 AM.

[Joseph_Dantes]

what this boils down to is do you have peer reviewed literature that advises smoking cigarettes may be beneficial in humans?

You can take your peer review fetish and cram it where the globe doesn't warm, right next to your FDA pyramid.

[rwac]

what this boils down to is do you have peer reviewed literature that advises smoking cigarettes may be beneficial in humans?

Of course not, and there likely won't ever be due to group think/ethical concerns. If there was, it wouldn't be nearly as much of a conspiracy theory.

On the other hand, I don't think anyone sufficiently rebutted nightlight's arguments, that makes me wonder...

[ajnast4r]

You can take your peer review fetish and cram it where the globe doesn't warm, right next to your FDA pyramid.

yup... screw me for wanting you to support your claims with valid medical science.

Edited by ajnast4r, 11 November 2010 - 08:04 AM.

[Joseph_Dantes]

You can take your peer review fetish and cram it where the globe doesn't warm, right next to your FDA pyramid.

yup... screw me for wanting you to support your claims with valid medical science.

From Vox Day:

UPDATE - The Wall Street Journal on peer-review:

The Guardian even solicits "reader leaders" (to go with the extraterritorial editorial--ha ha, what wits), although if you scroll down on the page, you will see that a good many of the submissions have been "removed by a moderator." That is what scientists call peer review.

Peer review is nothing more or less than editing. It's not objective. It's not even science. In fact, it's almost the complete opposite of science, because it is entirely subjective.

EDIT: It seems Nightlight has graced this very forum with his illuminating presence: http://www.imminst.o...s-good-for-you/

Edited by Joseph_Dantes, 11 November 2010 - 10:20 AM.

[rwac]

what this boils down to is do you have peer reviewed literature that advises smoking cigarettes may be beneficial in humans?

Lung cancer mortality after 16 years in MRFIT participants in intervention and usual-care groups. Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial.
Shaten BJ, Kuller LH, Kjelsberg MO, Stamler J, Ockene JK, Cutler JA, Cohen JD.

Coordinating Centers for Biometric Research, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55414, USA.


Abstract
PURPOSE: The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT), a randomized clinical trial for the primary prevention of coronary heart disease, enrolled 12,866 men (including 8194 cigarette smokers) aged 35-57 years at 22 clinical centers across the United States. Participants were randomized either to special intervention (SI), which included an intensive smoking cessation program, or to usual care (UC). After 16 years of follow-up, lung cancer mortality rates were higher in the SI than in the UC group. Since rates of smoking cessation in SI were higher than those for UC for the 6 years of the trial, and since risk of lung cancer mortality is known to decline with smoking cessation, these results were unexpected. The purpose of the present study was to investigate hypotheses that could explain the higher observed lung cancer mortality rates in the SI as compared with the UC group.

METHODS: Analytic methods were employed to determine whether SI and UC participants differed either in baseline characteristics or in characteristics that changed during the trial and to determine whether these differences could explain the higher rates of lung cancer mortality among SI as compared to UC participants. Rates of mortality from coronary heart (CHD) were examined to explore the possibility that prevention of CHD death may have contributed to greater mortality due to lung cancer in the SI group.

RESULTS: From randomization through December 1990, 135 SI and 117 UC participants died from lung cancer. The relative difference between the SI and U groups adjusted for age and number of cigarettes smoked per day, was 1.17 (95% CI:0.92-1.51). The greatest difference between the SI and UC groups in lung cancer mortality rates occurred among the heaviest smokers at baseline who did not achieve sustained smoking cessation by year 2. In this group the rates of death from CHD were approximately the same among the SI and UC subjects. No differences in baseline characteristics were found between SI and UC smokers who did not achieve sustained cessation by year 2, and there were no differences in follow-up characteristics between the two study groups that could explain the difference in lung cancer mortality.

CONCLUSIONS: None of the hypotheses proposed to explain the unexpected higher rates of lung cancer mortality among SI as compared with UC subjects were sustained by the data. Thus we conclude that the difference observed is due to chance, and that a longer period of sustained smoking cessation plus follow-up is necessary to detect a reduction in lung cancer mortality as a result of smoking cessation intervention in a randomized clinical trial.

http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/9099400

[Joseph_Dantes]

I can propose two answers for the studies' unexpected finding:

1. Quitting smoking is bad for you. This is well known in animal studies. It produces a biological meltdown.

2. The death curse is bad for you. The intensive smoking cessation program amounted to intensive propaganda to participants that they would get lung cancer. Unsurprisingly, they did.

[churchill]

Churchill, you've just argued that you will not accept a hard scientific experiment as evidence of causation. I find that argument remarkably stupid coming from someone who claims the anti-smoking case has lots of "firm evidence."

Why is smoking correlated with an early death?

Why are painkillers correlated with an early death? Why are anxiolytics correlated with depression?

There are great complexities in the self selection of smokers.

Lung cancer incidence internationally, in e.g. Japan, does not match American levels despite higher rates of smoking.

The strong correlations between smoking and early death in America suggest several possibilities:
1. smoking is a powerful treatment for things that are killing people, causing sick people to self-select into smoking,
2. smoking is killing people,
3. smoking is an unrelated result of causes that are killing people.
4. something connected with smoking, other than smoking itself, is killing people

One then looks at hard experiments determine which is the truth. Again I commend you to Google. Otherwise I'm going to keep running circles around you.

FYI, I think 1, 2, 3, and 4 have some validity.
1: The main truth. Demonstrated in animal studies and human studies of industrial pollution's effect on smokers vs non-smokers, to name two examples.
2. More true in the modern day. Perverse incentives abound after the tobacco settlements, allowing cigarette companies to pump their product full of addictive and deadly chemicals.
3. Tobacco is a powerful biochemical anxiolytic, but the simple gesture and act of smoking has its own anxiety relieving effects, which self-selects for anxious and addictive people
4. Smokers who did not believe tobacco would kill them fared far better than smokers who believed anti-smoking propaganda but continued to smoke. This is the "death curse" effect; when someone believes they will die, their body can make it real via the emotions.

Stop with the insults, you are the one coming here with a complete minority view which hardly anyone agrees with you should be the one coming up with study after study of evidence rather than telling me to just Google it. I did just Google it, guess what I came up with, yes that is right pages and pages of links which tell me that smoking kills. So you provide your evidence, if it is compelling it will speak for itself.

You need to reread what I said, I will spell it out more clearly in case it was not clear to you before. I won't accept non-human hard evidence for causation and extrapolate it to humans with the same level of belief in the causation. In the case of drugs or treatments for example it has been shown over and over again that something which works in say a mouse model, when tried on humans or even other species does not work in the same way.

In reference to your comparison of Japan vs. America and lung cancer, why are you quoting epidemiological data when you don't believe in it? Let me quote you directly 'correlational epidemiological studies, nothing more. Highly suspect. '. I think that as long as the epidemiological controls for the likely other risk factors (e.g. the ones you have outlined) then an epidemiological data is relevant and can indicate causality, would you agree or disagree?

Onto your alternate explanations for why people who smoke die younger.

1. smoking is a powerful treatment for things that are killing people, causing sick people to self-select into smoking,
2. smoking is killing people,
3. smoking is an unrelated result of causes that are killing people.
4. something connected with smoking, other than smoking itself, is killing people

1: The main truth. Demonstrated in animal studies and human studies of industrial pollution's effect on smokers vs non-smokers, to name two examples.
2. More true in the modern day. Perverse incentives abound after the tobacco settlements, allowing cigarette companies to pump their product full of addictive and deadly chemicals.
3. Tobacco is a powerful biochemical anxiolytic, but the simple gesture and act of smoking has its own anxiety relieving effects, which self-selects for anxious and addictive people
4. Smokers who did not believe tobacco would kill them fared far better than smokers who believed anti-smoking propaganda but continued to smoke. This is the "death curse" effect; when someone believes they will die, their body can make it real via the emotions.

1 + 3 + are contradicted by studies that show smokers who stop smoking well before they die end up living as long as non smokers who never smoked. What studies are you relying on to link anxiety to an earlier death? As far as I am aware people who suffer from anxiety still have higher life expectancies than smokers, feel free to provide evidence to the contrary.

2 and 4 sound the most plausible. Do you have any stats on the percentage of smokers who do believe smoking kills them vs. those who don't?

Can you point me to the studies you are talking about in 1?

[ajnast4r]

CONCLUSIONS: None of the hypotheses proposed to explain the unexpected higher rates of lung cancer mortality among SI as compared with UC subjects were sustained by the data. Thus we conclude that the difference observed is due to chance, and that a longer period of sustained smoking cessation plus follow-up is necessary to detect a reduction in lung cancer mortality as a result of smoking cessation intervention in a randomized clinical trial.

i went ahead and highlighted more the more relevant part of that study... and i wouldnt exactly say they are recommending smoking lol

From Vox Day:

UPDATE - The Wall Street Journal on peer-review:

The Guardian even solicits "reader leaders" (to go with the extraterritorial editorial--ha ha, what wits), although if you scroll down on the page, you will see that a good many of the submissions have been "removed by a moderator." That is what scientists call peer review.

Peer review is nothing more or less than editing. It's not objective. It's not even science. In fact, it's almost the complete opposite of science, because it is entirely subjective.

EDIT: It seems Nightlight has graced this very forum with his illuminating presence: http://www.imminst.o...s-good-for-you/

yes, where his argument was thoroughly dismantled. if you want ignore the scientific method and smoke based on weak evidence than be my guest... we'll just let natural selection sort out who's right.

Edited by ajnast4r, 11 November 2010 - 05:07 PM.

[rwac]

i went ahead and highlighted more the more relevant part of that study... and i wouldnt exactly say they are recommending smoking lol

They clearly could not find a better explanation. They concluded as they did, because it would be terribly non-PC to conclude otherwise (not to mention career-limiting).
This is why it's necessary to dig into papers sometimes. Any controversial results tend to get papered over.

[Joseph_Dantes]

I said your argument was stupid, that's not an insult. And it was stupid to criticize the causal implications of controlled experiments when your case rests on correlational epidemiology, which you've described as "firm evidence."

Your Google fu must be incredibly weak, since I provided you the search term to use and also linked to a thread on this very forum where Nightlight does his thing.

If truth is a democracy then I am assuredly wrong. You've got me there.

I have no problem with you being skeptical of animal to human extrapolations. It should be obvious I applaud all forms of skepticism.

Your analogy of drugs operating differently in humans versus mice doesn't make sense here. We are talking about a carcinogen. Carcinogens operate at a basic, universal cellular level. Cancer tests are routinely run on mice, with no human trials, and the results deemed conclusive. You are rejecting this protocol when it comes to smoking, and without good reason.

I am not interested in proving the health benefits of smoking. I know them because I've experienced them firsthand. It is sufficient for me to undermine the case for "smoking causes cancer" to win.

Again you demonstrate your incompetence in debate. I can simultaneously criticize my opponent's reliance on epidemiological data, and demonstrate that the data is inconsistent with his interpretation, without committing any sort of hypocrisy.

I disagree with your naive belief in the ability of epidemiologists to control for extraneous variables in this case. They cannot even get paleo diet right.

I seem to recall reading studies saying that people who quit smoking die sooner. I could be wrong. Why don't you provide your study and then I'll look up mine.

In any case, it's immaterial to defending my case because your logic is so weak. Per 1, perhaps the ones who quit need it less. Certainly my health dictated that I MUST smoke in order to work for a period of years. Otherwise I lacked sufficient focus. Per 3, the same objection - perhaps the deadly unrelated cause is removed in those who quit, or never existed for that subset. None of the 4 points I raise need apply to all smokers.

I am amused by your assertion that anxious people live longer than smokers. If that were true, what exactly do you think it would it prove?

We can keep going around in circles all day with correlational junk. The fact is, the one semi-controlled human study that has been cited in this thread showed that quitting CAUSED lung cancer. Now you've protested that you won't accept animal studies; here's the human one. Are you really going to argue correlation over a controlled intervention? Good luck with calling that "science" and me "unscientific." If you examine the "scientific method," you will find the word "experiment" featured quite prominently.

I have never read any statistics on the percentage of smokers believing in the "death curse." It would be interesting. I believe it was the increased mortalities for the quit groups that led Nightlight to posit this phenomenon. But I am very foggy on this point.

I listed 1 as a possibility suggested by a correlation, not as a conclusion of studies. Do try to exercise some basic logic and reading comprehension if you wish me to refrain from insulting you. My forbearance is at its limit.

However, such studies do exist, and I have read them. Nightlight spoke of an aluminum mill where smokers were better protected against the known lung damage of aluminum dust than nonsmokers. There are probably other examples I'm not recalling. There was also a good deal of biochem and pharmacology that I'm not qualified to follow. Again, Google it. My burden of proof is solely to destroy the logic of your "smoking causes cancer" argument, and I'm already a bonus point ahead with the "quitting causes cancer" study.

For the sake of fairness, I did not smoke a cigarette while composing this post.

[Joseph_Dantes]

"i went ahead and highlighted more the more relevant part of that study... and i wouldnt exactly say they are recommending smoking lol
yes, where his argument was thoroughly dismantled. if you want ignore the scientific method and smoke based on weak evidence than be my guest... we'll just let natural selection sort out who's right."

Ajnastr, Churchill should really thank you for making him look so good.

Welding on boilerplate consensus conclusions unsupported by the inconvenient data of the study itself is standard publishing procedure in the circle-wank known as peer review.

Someone more intelligent than you said on this very thread that Nightlight's arguments had never been thoroughly refuted. But feel free to carry on with your self image as a crusader "Bright" righting the world one Spock jpg at a time.

As for natural selection, clearly you have never experienced the Game elevating effects of fine quality tobacco.

But I'm curious, precisely what reproductive advantage is living 60 years instead of 80 supposed to confer upon modern man? You'll note the short-lived, heavy smoking lower classes reproduce quite efficiently. In fact, China, a country not known for its sparse population, is positively puffing out its gills. Or are these observations an unpardonable abuse of epidemiology?

[ajnast4r]

I'm not sure why you're feeling the need to weave insults into everything you're saying? You're new here, and I can't tell if you're just trolling looking to argue for enjoyment or actually want to be a positive, contributing member of the forum... But I can assure you the arrogant & insulting way you keep speaking to people, and the way you sidestep and avoid peoples rebuttals to your position make you neither welcome here or a positive contributor to our cause.

the issue here man is that you cant just DECIDE in of yourself that epidemiological studies, correlation and the peer review process are worthless & scientifically invalid. well you CAN, but no one is going to take you seriously unless you have a completely irrefutable way to prove them to be worthless... which you dont, you have your own opinions & a wall street journal article. what i said before holds true, tobacco is THE single best studied disease causing agent in existence... and if you think ANYONE is going to take your position seriously based on a few, small animal studies & your opinions on what is and is not crap science... you are sadly mistaken.

i have, as i'm sure most people here have, felt the positive effects of psychoactive stimulants like nicotine... but you have to weigh the positive effects against the negative effects. to say that tobacco/nicotine is completely free of detrimental effects on health & disease causing chemicals is ludicrous. i don't think many people here are really concerned about reproductive efficiency... the point of this forum and this organization is to promote longer lifespan and attenuate the effects of aging & disease and there is NO (read: worthwhile) evidence that suggests that cigarette smoking may be a viable way for humans to extend their lifespan or attenuate any disease.

if you feel so strongly that tobacco is a life extending agent in humans i would invite you to put your money where your mouth is and invest in setting up some studies.

Edited by ajnast4r, 12 November 2010 - 02:54 AM.

[Joseph_Dantes]

Is the whining and passive aggressive manipulation supposed to make me more impressed with you?

Again you fail at reading comprehension.

• I said correlational studies are good for suggesting possible causal relationships for subsequent experimental testing.
• I said peer review isn't science. It's not; it's editing. This should be easy enough for even you to figure out. Are peer reviewed journals of literature science?

It's well known that medical science is massively flawed. See the works of John Ioannidis. He describes exactly the processes by which something like smoking can be incorrectly labeled harmful in this Atlantic Monthly article.

And he was talking about controlled, properly run experiments. You're talking about sloppy, contradictory epidemiology.

"tobacco is THE single best studied disease causing agent in existence"

Your skills at self-parody are sublime. Let me give you an example of an actual well-studied disease - scurvy.

"It was pure luck that led to the actualdiscovery of vitamin C. Axel Holst and Theodor Frolich had beenstudying beriberi (another deficiency disease) in pigeons, and whenthey decided to switch to a mammal model, they serendipitously choseguinea pigs, the one animal besides human beings and monkeys thatrequires vitamin C in its diet. Fed a diet of pure grain, the animalsshowed no signs of beriberi, but quickly sickened and died ofsomething that closely resembled human scurvy.
No one had seen scurvy in animalsbefore. With a simple animal model for the disease in hand, it becamea matter of running the correct experiments, and it was quicklyestablished that scurvy was a deficiency disease after all. Veryquickly the compound that prevents the disease was identified as asmall molecule present in cabbage, lemon juice, and many other foods,and in 1932 Szent-Györgyi definitively isolated ascorbic acid."

I encourage you to read the whole article for examples of medical science failure, failures of common sense, and experimental failure on a disastrous scale. And, you'll note, it was animal science that finally pointed the way to the truth, a truth that was easily available to those who hadn't been following the current medical consensus like blinkered mules.

"i have, as i'm sure most people here have, felt the positive effects of psychoactive stimulants like nicotine... "

You've just admitted another health benefit of tobacco!

You were the one who brought up natural selection, not me. I just won the point.

I love the way you qualify your "NO evidence" with a "viable" because we already have hamster studies showing extended lifespans and quit studies showing increased cancer rates.

I invite the medical establishment that is so certain smoking causes cancer to put its money where its mouth is by running some new animal studies, since proving a compound is carcinogenic is so easy. Mice or monkies, makes no difference to me.

Hint: It won't happen because the health benefits are so strong that neither unconscious nor deliberate manipulation of results is sufficient to make the control group do better than the smoking group.

[churchill]

@JD

Your ad hominem attacks are indirect, I am sure you think that makes you smart, it does not it just makes you sound like you have some sort of disorder of the brain. I am here for the evidence not to listen to your smoking insecurities. Your reading skills leave a lot to be desired.

The first post from nightlight in that thread uses anecdotal evidence, and you expect me to read the rest of the thread? I think you should stop trying to argue to authority, he is no kind of authority (apart from in your mind).

Anecdotal evidence is the worst type of evidence to use, again basic. It is pretty comical that you stand there and deride epidemiological data while you are happy to use anecdotal evidence. Let me quote you
"I am not interested in proving the health benefits of smoking. I know them because I've experienced them firsthand. It is sufficient for me to undermine the case for "smoking causes cancer" to win."

My Google fu is pretty strong thank you very much, you were imprecise, you did not state the search term anywhere. Further more you did not tell me which of the Google search engine portals to use, I am sure that you are aware you get different results give you are logged in to Google or if you are located in another country. Or how about you just give me the link and stop wasting my time.

Even in the case of carcinogens, I would still say that causality in non-humans does not mean causality in humans (although clearly it implies it), just because something kills a rat does not mean it will necessarily kill a human. The reason why human trials are not done is because the experiments would have the potential to kill humans, which is generally considered to be unethical unless there is a strong overriding reason to do it.

The reason I was bringing up anxiety is because you put it forth as an alternate reason for why smoking kills. So from this I would say that if it is anxiety that is killing people rather than the smoking, you would expect to see people who don't smoke, but are anxious to have similar death rates as smokers. If it is a significant cause you would expect at the very least to see anxious people die significantly before non-anxious people. It seems like you are not really interested in delving any deeper, as you have already discovered your own internal bias and cannot see past it.

>I have read them. Nightlight spoke of an aluminum mill where smokers were better protected against the known lung damage of aluminum dust than nonsmokers
This is your hard evidence? Even if this were true you can not extrapolate this to the general population.

Here is the study which indicated that people who smoke and quit live longer than people who never quit.

[Joseph_Dantes]

I doubt you can point to any specific instance of me misreading anything you've written. I've pointed out multiple instances of you doing so and will point out more in this post.

It is the province of pedantic minds to whine that deserved criticism is unfair ad hominem. While argumentum ad hominem is a logical fallacy, argumentum plus ad hominem is not.

Given that uninterested commenters on this thread have given credit to Nightlight's arguments, yes I do expect you to read them.

Anecdote is a form of evidence. It is the singular of evidence. It is arguably better than correlational studies, because at least causation can be established in one instance, rather than zero.

I too derive comic enjoyment from your inability to understand the concept of burden of proof. My initial statement in this thread was that the case that smoking is bad for you is very weak. That is the thesis I'm defending. While it is certainly my opinion that smoking has many benefits, I'm not defending that opinion as fact at this time. Although you may want to check with Ajnastr, who's not helping your case by admitting nicotine's neurostimulative properties.

"You did not state the search term anywhere"

Allow me to quote myself, in my first post in this thread:

"Read the forum posts by "nightlight" for much, much more. Google "nightlight forum smoking.""

I hope this settles the reading comprehension aspect of our argument.

I have given you the link, which you say you did not read because he started an argument of many posts with an anecdote. Perhaps you should have continued reading.

I don't follow your assertions on causality, carcinogens, animals and humans. Are you saying that findings based on animal testing of carcinogens are inapplicable to humans?

I am not interested in delving deeper into correlational hypotheticals because they are a never-ending merry go round of unquantified speculation. The fact that you can generate speculation to counter my speculation merely underlines this point.

Yes, I think the aluminum mill study suggests the possibility of a protective health benefit of smoking, specifically against atmospheric pollution. Generalizable studies looking for the benefits of smoking to humans have not been done, to my knowledge.

The English doctors study you cite has no random selection of the quit group. It is not an experiment, just more collection of correlations. Those who decided to quit may have been more health conscious in general - why else does a smoker quit?

The study you've provided is far weaker evidence than the MRFIT study, which was randomized, and whose unexpected results they were forced to explain away as "chance" in a study with a 12.89k sample size.

The controlled studies that I found that showed quitting smoking reduced life expectancy also intervened in other areas, such as diet. They thus have confounding variables, and I won't bother to cite them.

Pro-smoking advocates claim the controlled studies that focused exclusively on smoking showed no change in mortality, and that there were 6 such studies done. I found no citations in the sources I read except for the Whitehall Survey of 1968, which I was unable to find online in full searchable text.

Therefore I quote from a biased secondary source:

"In 1968 fourteen hundred British civil servants, all smokers, were divided into two similar groups. Half were encouraged and counselled to quit smoking. These formed the test group. The others, the control group, were left to their own devices. For ten years both groups were monitored with respect to their health and smoking status.
...
So what were the results of the Whitehall study? They were contrary to all expectation. The quit group showed no improvement in life expectancy. Nor was there any change in the death rates due to heart disease, lung cancer, or any other cause with one exception: certain other cancers were more than twice as common in the quit group. Later, after twenty years there was still no benefit in life expectancy for the quit group."

http://members.iinet...ay/TSSOASb.html

If anyone can find the Whitehall Survey and it contradicts this summary, I welcome the correction.

In any case "counselling to quit smoking" as an intervention leaves much to be desired methodologically for two reasons: it influences but does not eliminate self selection, and it may amplify the the "death curse" effect.

[ajnast4r]

Is the whining and passive aggressive manipulation supposed to make me more impressed with you?

what i said was neither whining nor passive aggressive... it was an attempt to get you to turn the volume down on your ego.

You've just admitted another health benefit of tobacco!

perceived benefit and actual benefit are two totally different things. by your logic, you should really go try some amphetamine... will make you forget tobacco ever existed!


i think man, that i'm not going to participate in this thread anymore... i was on the verge of digging my heals in and pubmeding this thread into oblivion but its just not worth the effort... you will just insult me a bunch of times and casually dismiss anything you dont feelto be worthwhile. how can you have a meaningful debate with someone who just says 'i dont like that, it doesnt count' & makes broad, sweeping, scientifically unfounded statements of dismissal about every piece of evidence you bring to the table?

[Joseph_Dantes]

If you don't have the emotional fortitude to debate someone who takes a negative position rather than making an affirmative case, by all means, go.

EDIT: As usual your argument makes no sense. Were it not for the negative side effects, everyone would take amphetamines. Improved mental functioning is certainly an advertised health benefit of many substances promoted here.

EDIT2: I refer you to the words of one of the world's most cited medical scientists, John Ioannidis: "Ignore all of it."

Edited by Joseph_Dantes, 12 November 2010 - 06:51 PM.