Planning a smoking area?

[OohhoO]

9th?

NINTH??

oooh are you gonna get it in email boyo...

You're above the designated President of the Universe so what more can you ask

[Xest]

OK, so to get back to being serious...

I think there are various things which we can probably all agree on:-
1) Smoking is bad for you. Not only for the smoker but also for anyone else subjected to it.
2) There are a lot of sub-optimal things in our societies & smoking is a cheap & easy target (but isn't it really a case of attacking the symptoms & not the cause?)
3) Discrimination & bans can be bad if not used wisely & judiciously.

Anyone disagree with that?

Actually, yes I agree on that lot pretty much

Only real stalling point is Sharkith's insistance that because the proof isn't 100% definitive, only say, 95%+ for some illnesses, 99.99% for others. Any proof we're further told is all political and part of a conspiracy theory, which is odd when there's less motive for damaging the tobacco industries than there is for protecting them! I think you're right, in that for the majority of the population (i.e. not Sharkith) even as low as 90% certainty is enough of a risk when we're possibly even talking about people's lives! We take risks on a daily basis, each time you cross a road you're asking whether it's safe to cross when there's a 1% chance there could be a joyrider flying round the corner at 130mph for example, but as there's 99% chance that there isn't most the time (i.e. unless you're near Brighton waterfront on a Saturday night ) we go for it.

As I've pointed out already I'm not even saying smoking is something that should be banned outright, I just feel it's a habit where care is needed so as to fully respect others, which once again people have pointed out quite rightly that most smokers do indeed respect. Again, the only real argument seems to be about whether smoking should be banned to outright avoid the danger of the disrespectful smokers and with Sharkith, whether or not 95% confidence in proof is enough confidence, something which I'd understand more if we weren't talking about multiple illnesses also.

[Sharkith]

Those would be the articles that agree that there is a higher risk of TB amongst smokers?

They compliment the wikipedia list of citations, which are equally and in some cases from even more reputed sources than the articles you provide. You use the argument that your single source is reputable yet somehow believe that evidence from greater in number, and from even more reputable sources is somehow false? That's about selective as you can get in trying to find evidence to support your case, yet this is the very thing you're claiming occurs in the evidence against you that is equally and more reputable! If you're now suggesting that the argument is won on quality and quantity of articles, you lose, hard.

If you can't even accept comments from the tobacco industry itself accepting that smoking and passive smoking are harmful it's pretty obvious you really have absolutely no idea what you're on about.

Oh well, maybe one day you'll have a point, until then maybe you should consider answering Ovi's question. As for me wanting you to flame me, there's not really much need for me to want that when you've been doing it regardless for a while now. I'll give you one thing, you're good at talking about philosophy, discussing what is proof and so forth, it's just a shame you've demonstrated that you have no understanding about things such as reasonable doubt, acceptable levels of proof and confidence intervals, unfortunately without this kind of understanding you also can't put across any kind of point in a reasonable and sensible manner as you've proven once more here and as you've proven once before with your argument that Darwinism is a conspiracy theory.

As I said before the Wiki article is in fact unclear. It starts by citing the WHO as stating that there is 'conclsuive proof' that cigarette smoke causes disease. The WHO if you knew anything about public health is a political body that was brought into being to 'positively' promote health throughout the world through putting 'political' pressure on governemnts to improve the environmental conditions for health and to provide basic health services as a human right. It began with the work of Stampar and has followed those 'political' goals ever since. This is a political body engaged in the politics of health and the decision to say smoking causes heart disease etc. was most likely a poltiical decision.

This indicates that what is happening here is a very political thing. The Wiki article then slides into the language of risk. Now I will explain what that means. It means that statistically in most of the epidemiological evidence on the problem at hand they can be 95% sure that there is an increased risk of a multitude of problems associated with smoking. The evidence for the risks associated with passive smoking is much less emphatic and that is why your claim that passive smoking causes cancer is simply unscientific. In all of the debate on this (passive smoking) your like waaay out there in a wee world of your own.

The decision to move to support the claim that smoking kills was taken in the light of consistent associations from studies that were not of the highest level of evidence. No a consistent association is not a cause and effect relationship. Not by a long shot Xest. Not even with the 95 or 90% confidence intervals. That is where I feel your over stepping the line.

Now the reason why I say this is that the positive sciences have been following a line of research programmes that are based on some measure of the principle of falsifiability. Simply stated this means that a theory claim is not scientific if it cannot be falsified. In this instance we could falisfy the claim that smoking does not kill quite easily but the research would be unethical. We cannot disprovie God exists and so the theory of God is unscientific and therefore should be correctly consigned to religion.

Simply put on the smoking issue we are looking at the political use of science for political aims.

On the evolutionary thery thing I put forward an argument that it is a nice story. not that it was a conspiracy. You made that last bit up by yourself. Evolutionary theory is not strictly speaking a scientific theory - that is if you follow a strict falsificationist approach. Why? Well because the hypothesis that biological structural changes in species like human beings occur as a result of enviornmental adaptation cannot be subjected to experimental testing because those changes occur over very long periods of time. As a result the theory is more philosophical than empirical.

It could be argued to be a scientific theory but to do that you have to relax the rules of falisification as essential criteria for science. To some extent this was done by Lakatos who said that if we were to follow Popper no theory would be scientific.

Now that brings me back to this issue. From the outset I said this is more to do with one group telling another group that their behaviour was not wanted and that the evidence on passive smoking was not really scientifically consistent or strong. I believe that a skeptical position on this is best because there are other more significan reasons why people have gone for the ban on smoking. Those reasons where not based on the claim you were throwing about earlier. They were political and ethical. On that front I agreed that a ban was in fact the best thing to do.

[Quinlan]

So...
To sum up...
Here are the OohhoO Awards For Coolness In This Thread!

1st: Quinlan
2nd: Kesxex
3rd: Sharkith

heh

Thanks OohoO

And i have to say i agree with your list of 3 things listed above. The good thing (and i say this as a smoker) is that smoking will be banned in..ermm was it June...here in the UK. Then people will not be forced in to area's with smokers.

And Xest on the 95% proof. Being 95% sure of something can never be proof. Altho ofcourse being 100% sure at this point in time doesnt have to mean anything either. Happened lotsa times in history that a 100% proved fact suddenly was found wrong due to more understanding/technology.

As long as you are not bothered by it (which the ban should do mostly) let the smokers be. Treat people as you want them to treat you. Yes there will always be the tosser smoker who doesnt care. But there will also be the tosser non-smoker who goes overboard

[Gandelf]

So...
To sum up...
Here are the OohhoO Awards For Coolness In This Thread!

1st: Quinlan
2nd: Kesxex
3rd: Sharkith
4th: OohhoO
5th: Tuthmes
6th: Gahn
7th: ShiShi
8th: Satyn
9th: Banana
10th: Xest (which is a shame cos I already voted for Xest as President of the Universe =/)
11th: Elrandhir
12th: Takitothemacs
13th: Ankh
14th: Ovi
15th: Gandelf
16th: Haarewin
17th: Moley

So congratulations to Quinlan, Kesxex & Sharkith & the rest of us will just have to try harder

Surely I should be bottom of the list? After all I started the thread, which must mean I'm the least cool of all! I feel cheated!

[Moley:)]

Im the dreg of this thread woo hoo

*does a little mole dance (combination of poking out of holes in ground with a melody)

[Gandelf]

I saw the advert on TV again tonight. It said that passive smoking increases your risk of developing heart-disease by 25%. I think that is pretty shocking to be honest and just strengthens my personal opinion that the onus is on smokers to actively seek a place in which to smoke that is away from non-smokers. I don't believe that non-smokers should have to give ground to smokers.

[Quinlan]

Believing commercials is like believing everything in the media..in general not a wise thing to do

[Haarewin]

On the other hand...
Why do you drive a car?
Statistically you're extremely likely in a lifetime of cardriving to have an accident in which either yourself or some 3rd party(ies) are either seriously injured or killed, on top of which the exhaust fumes are just as bad as passive smoking not only for yourself but everyone on the planet.

Think this has gone a bit off track here. I got peed off cos Xest told me that if i smoked outside it was harming him anyway.
What about all the deo's you use? Or the BBQ's you do? or as been said when you drive your car ... and more important every time you use you mobile phone.
What if i would say i want you to stop using you mobile phone cos the waves it sends out could cause me to get cancer?

oh, i didn't realised that any of this had been proven to cause harm (ie; to the environment), just like smoking hasn't. and you are arguing that the damage smoking causes isn't proven.
"ok!"


at least i'm not "cool" - the smokers seem high up on that list.

[Sharkith]

I saw the advert on TV again tonight. It said that passive smoking increases your risk of developing heart-disease by 25%. I think that is pretty shocking to be honest and just strengthens my personal opinion that the onus is on smokers to actively seek a place in which to smoke that is away from non-smokers. I don't believe that non-smokers should have to give ground to smokers.

Do you know what your basic risk is and what else is increasing that basic risk Gandy?

Do you eat butter or flora?

If your basic risk is 1 in a million then increasing it to 1.25 in a million is not a big increase is it?