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A blunderbus approach to criticism of statistics. . - book review

Skeptical Inquirer, Sept-Oct, 2002 by Terence Hines

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In another instance, Milloy simply seems not to have read the relevant literature. On page 118 he is properly critical of estimates of the economic costs of cigarette smoking by noting that the claims that "differences in medical expenditures between smokers and nonsmokers are due only to smoking" are "probably not true" due to other differences between smokers and nonsmokers. But those huge estimates of the economic "costs" of smoking can be criticized on much more serious grounds. Reports of smoking-related costs are just that--reports of the costs only. They do not take into account the cost savings that result from smoking. Unfortunately, us non-smokers aren't immortal. We're going to die of something. The fact is that lung cancer, the major fatal disease of smokers, kills you relatively young and relatively fast, and thus relatively cheaply. So smokers generally die at a time when they have lived a productive life but before they have a chance to develop many of the chronic and debilitating, to say noth ing of extremely expensive, diseases of old age such as Alzheimer's disease. Dead smokers are also less likely collect social security payment and retirement benefits. The point is not that it is "good" that smoking kills people. The point is that any rational economic analysis of the effects of a behavior like smoking must take into account both the real costs and the real cost savings associated with the behavior. For example, a recent Dutch study (Barendregt et al. 1997) estimated that the lifetime average health care costs for smokers is $83,700 and for non-smokers $97,200.

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The numerous serious flaws in the logic and coverage of this book render it essentially useless as a guide to the detection of junk science. This is a real shame as the book does contain interesting and important nuggets of information. I was unaware, for example, that in studies of the risks of secondhand smoke the EPA arbitrarily changed the p value for significance from .05 to .075, thereby shifting a finding of the risks from "non-significant" to significant." It appears that secondhand smoke isn't a health risk-- though in my view that doesn't mean smoking shouldn't be banned. Secondhand smoke is still annoying, and that is sufficient grounds for a ban--just as we would feel no compunction about banning drinkers at a bar from spitting part of their bourbon and water on the folks around them. As the book stands, it comes across as little more than an ill-thought-out temper tantrum against those damn "statistics."

References

Barendregt, J.J., L. Bonneux, and P.J. van der Maas. 1997. The health care costs of smoking. New England Journal of Medicine 337, 1052-1057.

Hines, T.M. 1998. Comprehensive review of biorhythm theory. Psychological Reports 83, 19-64.

-----. 2001. The Doman-Delacato patterning treatment for brain damage. Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine 5, 80-89.

-----. 2002. Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. 2nd edition. Amherst NY: Prometheus Books.

A blunderbus approach to criticism of statistics. . - book review

Skeptical Inquirer, Sept-Oct, 2002 by Terence Hines

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