Who Are You Who Are So Wise In The Ways Of Science?
A letter to the editor that appeared in today's Star Tribune:
In a room of 70 standing people, all who knew anyone affected by cancer were asked to sit. After the request, one person remained standing. These people were teenagers. Someone please tell me why we shouldn't pass the smoking ban.
Someone please tell me why shouldn't pass a ban on moronic, illogical letters to the editor! Please!
Unfortunately, this is the kind of muddled thinking that is regularly featured in letters to the Strib. Little details like statistical probability, causation, and correlation are not important. Try, if you can, to follow this letter writer's logic [I am withholding her name to protect her family-no one should be forced to admit to being related to anyone this dense]:
Young people know other people who have cancer.
Smoking has been proven to cause cancer [although the jury is still out on second hand smoke].
Therefore...
Smoking should be banned in bars and restaurants in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Of course. And if a woman weighs the same as a duck she's a witch. It all makes perfect sense now.
[Sigh] Perhaps we really do deserve to be represented by Mark Dayton after all.
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