I got into a discussion regarding environmental tobacco smoke on a local board system. I posted a link to a very well-conducted scientific study from the World Health Organization (http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jnci;90/19/1440.pdf) regarding this topic. A woman who was the most vehement of those who opposed my point of view came to the following conclusions:
1: The study was no good because it took place in Europe.
2: The study was no good because it was published in 1997.
3: The study looked like “a bogus paper” to her (even though it’s on the web site of the National Cancer Institute).
4: Regardless of what the largest, best controlled, and tightest analyzed study to date on the subject had to say, she was still going to go with her “gut feeling”.
What was the conclusion of the study? That there was insufficient evidence to claim that ETS caused lung cancer.
Was it prejudice, ignorance, or a combination of both that led her to the “conclusions” she made about the study in question?
Some folks are immune to reason. I’d peg her as one of those, though not knowing her or seeing the thread thats just MY ‘gut’ call.
One study would not make me change my mind about a pet subject either, but it would certainly give me pause to think about the subject a little deeper and maybe do some more fact scrounging. I try not to go on the basis of my ‘gut’, as its mostly my brain that does the thinking for me…
In the woman’s defense, I, too, am somewhat leery of studies, because so many of them are spurious and make gross fundamental attributional errors. Perhaps she’s just being overly-cautious by not trusting any study.
But that’s the thing that got to me, and it’s an example of something I’ve noticed far more widely. I’m leery of studies. I don’t make up the cockamammie excuses she used. But I see her kind of behavior over and over.
What’s so great about ignorance that people persist in it so vehemently? Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is ignorance. The more I learn, the more happy I am. Yes, the fewer illusions I have, but when I find myself dis-illusioned, my response is to adjust my model and work accordingly.
Because people’s opinions tend to be tightly bound up with their identity, and become inextricable from their basic sense of self. For this woman, being part of the anti-tobacco campaign had become part of how she saw herself, so contrary evidence was seen as a threat.
Your identity is that of a rational person, so when new evidence forces you to readjust your world view, there is no sense of conflict. Unfortunately, only a minority seem to feel at ease with this identity.
Maybe she thinks in Europe tobacco is different from tobacco used in the USA or humans are different from USA humans?
By the way: The effect on the unborn child of a pregnant women who is addicted to nicotine is as far as I know a very well studied and proven case. But I guess that is purely about the effect of the nicotine, not the inhaled smoke or to be in a room where you must inhale the smoke produced by the sigarettes of others.
Yet from the studieresults I’ve read about I concluded that the risk to get lung cancer is severely greater for a smoker then for someone who doesn’t.
I agree that this woman’s position is indefensible. It can be likened to refusing to believe that sugar causes cavities. The ADA’s word is good enough for me, and as I said, I have no reason to doubt the report in the OP, either.
That being said, there are a lot of people who are sick and tired of being yo-yoed between conflicting studies done by biased researchers who twist data to suit their needs. (There’s an interesting book on this subject called *Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!) *
There is such a thing as willful ignorance, though, and I suspect the woman in the OP is a victim. Sadly enough, there are many people in this world who simply will not admit to the mere possibility that they may be wrong. It’s often a mixture of stubborness and blind faith which causes them to automatically reject anything which does not suit the way they see things.
You cannot win with these kinds of people. It is utterly useless to try to reason with them, because their views are not necessarily based on reason to begin with. No evidence, no argument, no *proof * will ever change their minds.
I understand where you’re coming from Dogface and your frustruation.
But, on a side note, I think the most ignorant thing about this thread is your title. You nitpick on this woman for being so bull headed and ignorant, yet you make a thread called ‘I weep for America’ because one chick disagrees with you? Are all Americans ignorant now?
You should probably change that to something relevant ASAP.
General Question aside: How’s the air in western Europe compared to that in the U.S.?
If it’s significantly better or worse than it is here, her criticism of the study may actually be valid in this instance (though, of course, for much different reasons than she apparently believed).
I’m going to make two assumptions and then move on. (1) ThinkThenTalk is male. (2) Dogface does not live in America.
I don’t agree with the way TTT said it, but he does have a point. It’s a normal human tendency for a person in country A with to base their opinions (which are not always negative!) on people in country B on a very small sample. I’ve done this several times, and the cure usually involves visiting country B and talking to ordinary people at random.
Many people outside America assume that all Americans think in black and white and have knee jerk overreactions. I certainly thought so when I grew up in the Southern Hemisphere. I know several people who have never visited America and thinks the behaviour of its politicians (and loud tourists) is representative of its people. I also know others who think that ALL Americans are warm, friendly people.
Such stereotyping goes both ways – remember when all Japanese males were ‘sararimen’ ?
I personally thought the study was very interesting, and should be shown to certain elected officials in New York and Ireland. And I say that as a non-asthmatic non-smoker. I also think it deserves a separate discussion elsewhere on Straight Dope (I’m going to see if one already exists as soon as I press the Submit button.)
Moderator’s Note: I was trying to come up with a better title for this thread, but since it seems to be as much a rant directed at the ignorance of a particular person as it is a debate, I’ll just move it to the Pit instead.
So… Dogface has learned that the world is inhabited primarily by craven yo-yo’s. Now your obligation is to mock them, not weep for them. And they ain’t all American, either.
Not to take anybody’s side in this, but who sponsored the study? Was there any information about sponsorship that might have prejudiced the boneheaded woman?
I don’t share the opinion of the woman referenced in the OP, as I have come to the conclusion that it is most probable that second hand smoke does not cause lung cancer, however I think I can explain her reaction to the study.
I know I am setting myself up for flaming, but here’s how it goes:
I hate cigarettes. I see them as a cause of much unnecessary pain and suffering which could very easily be avoided if people just didn’t smoke. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 30 years thinking about ways to prevent people from starting smoking (so they’d never get addicted or feel any need for cigarettes), or getting them to quit. These arguments tended to run smack up against my very American belief in individual freedom, which created a conflict in my mind and left me feeling extremely frustrated. Then along came the concept of second hand smoke. Suddenly there was a way to get people to stop smoking (and not to start) which didn’t require taking away people’s right to do something that could only harm themselves. Yay! I could support anti-smoking programs, laws banning smoking in public places, and just generally be against smoking without feeling that I was infringing on civil liberties. I was making a stand for myself and all the other innocent non-smokers who could be harmed by second hand smoke.
Only not. Because as studies keep showing, the whole secondhand smoke movement was not based on good scientific evidence.
So where does that leave me (and OP woman)? Still hating smoking, still wanting to do whatever we can to prevent it, but now having to do so in the face of the argument that people have a right to live their own lives as long as they aren’t harming others. Boo! Frustration! And one way of reacting to that frustration is to deny that the studies are valid, in order to hang on to the old unconflicted way of thinking.
Unfortunately, too much time spent on the SDMB has made it impossible for me to cling to a position that has been shown to be false. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t understand why OP woman reacted the way she did.
I am still anti-smoking, and I still believe that the harm done by smoking – in health care costs, in the pain caused to friends and loved ones of ill smokers, etc. – extends beyond the person smoking. But I’m willing to admit that the argument that cigarette smoking will make non-smokers sick is without merit. OP woman still has a way to go to get to that point. Her “gut feeling” is simply the feeling that it is terribly wrong and sad that people smoke, and her brain can’t quite grasp that where second-hand smoke is concerned, the science just isn’t backing her up.
Another good book, by the same authors, is called Trust Us, We’re Experts, and is about the way that science is often distorted in the name of advancing selfish goals.
