In my last blog I mildly mocked a colleague who defended his smoking habit by claiming it would kill him younger and thus save on health care. Dutch researchers recently released a study that supports this non-intuitive repercussion of an unhealthy lifestyle. They calculate the cost of care to be $90,000 less for the tobacco junkies versus those who lead a healthy life. They also threw cold water on the idea that obesity weighs down healthcare systems: By eating as much as they like, the eager eaters save nearly $50,000 in lifetime medical costs. Unfortunately these savings in caring for smokers and obese people come at the cost of shorter life spans. See the study’s stats at this article by Maria Cheng of Associated Press.

This begs the question as to whether it’s worth spending a great deal of money on government programs aimed at prevention of smoking and the like. Some might wonder whether these expenditures make much of a dent in the rates of tobacco addiction. However, a new report issued by the American Journal of Public Health claims that U.S. states that spent more on anti-smoking programs had the fewest smokers. (One wonders if this is correlation or causation.) Furthermore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a co-sponsor of the study, say that all but four states devote less than they recommend on the hazards of tobacco use. The CDC calculates that there would be 7 million fewer smokers in the USA had more money been spent. Evidently the state health officials came to their own conclusions on the costs versus benefits of attempting to dissuade smokers from shortening their lives as a desirable tradeoff for the “comfort” ( as the statistician Cochran put it) of their cigarettes.

The other day my daughter Carrie sent me this interesting bit of trivia on the field of statistics:

“Today in English we discussed some stuff that you should put in your blog. We are reading a book about the history of cigarettes.* It is pretty dry, but there are some interesting things. We discussed the first Surgeon General’s panel, which was set up like a jury. Each side (tobacco and anti-tobacco lobbyists) was allowed to eliminate possible panel members as they saw fit. The final panel included a statistician. The man was also a smoker, and after seeing the results of the studies he announced that based on the statistical evidence, despite pleas from his friends and family, the emotional benefits outweighed the health risks.

Here is the relevant passage:
‘In spite of the findings, as well as the urgings of his fellow committee members and the entreaties of his wife and daughter, Cochran relied on his own statistical analysis to support his decision to continue smoking. Having smoked for a long time, he could not become a statistical non-smoker, only a former smoker. Quitting now, he reasoned, would reduce his chances of succumbing to lung cancer from 40 percent higher than a non-smoker’s to 24 percent. ‘I think the comfort of my cigarettes is worth that 16 percent chance,’ he explained. He nonetheless conceded that he would probably cut down, and he noted that, ‘I certainly intend to see that my children never start.’

It sounds like the kind of crazy statistician logic that you would use! Cochran is William Cochran, and the panel was during the Kennedy administration.”

Cochran co-authored a book on Experimental Designs, so I’d heard of him (the American Statistical Association offers this detailed bio). I like this observation of Cochran about response surface methods (RSM): “… polynomials are notoriously untrustworthy when extrapolated.” Before Carrie’s heads-up I remained unaware of Cochran’s connection to the U.S. Public Health Service Advisory Committee formed in 1963 to research the effects of smoking on lung cancer. His cavalier attitude about being addicted to tobacco reminds me of a very sharp programmer who smoked. When hassled about the potential costs in terms of taxpayer-funded health care, his comeback was that smoking kills people at a younger age and thus reduces the ultimate medical expense!

*A Cigarette Century: the Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America by Allan M. Brandt.

“THE single most shattering statistic about life in America in the late 1990s was that tobacco killed more people than the combined total of those who died from AIDS, car accidents, alcohol, murder, suicide, illegal drugs and fire.“
— Lead statement from The Economist article An evil weed which features Brandt and his book.

PS.As much as smoking turns me off, I must admit to enjoying Jason Reitman’s movie Thank You for Smoking, which featured an astute lobbyist (played by Aaron Eckhart) who could turn any shot right back at the anti-tobacco forces. It is very amusing to see him skewer the self-righteous Senator (actor William H. Macy).

Many experimenters are plagued by variation. Physicists cite Heisenberg for uncertainty in their measurements. However, most engineers prefer to blame their troubles on the devilish Murphy or elusive gremlins.

Those of us in the computer business swear by, or rather – at, bugs as the culprit for anything that does not go as planned:
“Things were going badly; …Finally, someone located the trouble spot and, using ordinary tweezers, removed the problem, a two-inch moth. From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it.”
— Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, pioneer computer scientist

PS. The Admiral lived her life at ‘full steam’ as evidenced by this quote : “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.” (I advise extreme caution if you ever feel compelled to take action on this basis!)

This week sadly marks the demise of Whamo co-founder Richard Knerr – the company who popularized Fred Morrison’s Pluto Platter, re-branded as the “Frisbee.” Plastics were the thing back in those halcyon days of my youth in the 1960’s (the one word advised by the business man in the film The Graduate). However, Whamo’s Hula Hoop failed to ignite my interest, whereas the Frisbee kept me running for hours on end. The older fellows up the hill would float it far down our street for me to happily retrieve.

Throughout my life I’ve kept these plastic discs at hand for impromptu flings. I always brought several along on family camping trips we took throughout Minnesota in the 1980’s. I would designate a tree down the State park’s lane as flag number one and challenge my two boys to hit it before me. When they bonked the bark first, it was the winner’s prerogative to choose the next destination.

Evidently this proved to be a hit with my oldest son Ben, because he became an avid disc golfer. I’ve accompanied him on occasion and been privileged to see Ben make two aces, that is, the first toss going directly into the basket. These typically feature chain link ‘catchers’ that provide a very satisfactory ‘kachink’ when hit straight-on by the flying lid. By dint of keeping my throws short and accurate, I sometimes enjoy this sensational sussuration before my long-tossing offspring, but not often.

The week before last I enjoyed a great buddy trip with Ben doing some disc golfing in Southern California. We stayed with my aunt and her son (my first cousin) at their homes in Corona Del Mar. She found it amusing that grown men would play “Disco” golf, perhaps imagining a Travola-like stroll down the fairway to the tune of the BeeGee’s Stayin’ Alive. For me it was more of a good walk soiled by my ultimately successful attempt at retrieving a disk before if floated away on a muddy pond (pictured above) at Emerald Isle Golf Course outside Oceanside, CA. Ben ran into problems at another disc golf course in La Mirada’s Regional Park. I think it was hole 22 where his ‘driver’ floated over the fence into a back yard guarded two dogs – a little yapper and an ominously silent pit bull. I hope they enjoyed their new toy.

Like the more traditional golfing with balls, one must learn to move on from lost or irretrievable disks and remain mellow. To me, that’s what Frisbee was all about, so it really is an end of an era now that Whamo’s co-founder has passed on — to greener pastures, I hope.

PS. My daughters all enjoy doing the “disko” too. For example, Katie and her cousin did an experiment on a variety of brands and configurations, such as rings, which I documented in a Stat-Teaser article titled Sixth-Graders Experiment with Flying Disks. It generated a surprising number of responses, including:

– Support for the girls’ hypothesis that color might create an effect (an expert on plastics pointed out that pigments vary by weight)*

– A picture sent by University of Nevada Las Vegas Professor D. W. Pepper of a 10-foot wide disc made by an engineering student who purportedly threw it 1000 feet outside Reno, which generated reports of UFOs.** (I would enjoy the look of the La Mirada pit bull seeing this sky-blotting saucer sail over the fence!)

*See item #5 in my October 2002 DOE FAQ Alert

**Details reported in #6 of November 2002 DOE FAQ Alert

Earlier this month,* Newsweek’s “Health Matters” columnist Jerry More resolved that
“I will not report on any amazing new treatments for anything, unless they were tested in large, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trials published in high-quality peer-reviewed medical journals.”

He was “shamed” into this by biostatistician R. Barker Bausell’s book Snake Oil Science. Based on observations of his own loved ones, Bausell explains how immensely powerful placebo effects make almost any medical treatment appear to work, even though they are often caused by faith alone. Those who feel the benefits, whether it be placebo or physical (double-blind verified), usually do not care how this comes to pass. However, Bausell makes the case that placebo effects tend to be mild and temporary.

In an ironic twist of Jerry More’s resolution, Bausell advises that those afflicted with chronic health problems seek a promising remedy from an enthusiastic promoter and take the plunge with no reservations, thus maximizing any placebo effect!

Obviously one must be extremely cautious about side effects from any such purported therapy or substance. For example, some years ago my wife and I hosted a weight-obsessed exchange 16-year-old student from Mexico who harbored strong faith in alternative medicines (an oxymoron?) for curbing appetite. One day while shopping at a local mall, she got away from me and made a bee line to a health-food store. I found her at the counter with half a dozen bottles of very potent natural (?) substances that the teenage clerk recommended to her. I hustled us out of there without making that purchase.

Blind faith just does not work well for me. I like the double-blind approach much better.

* A Big Dose of Skepticism

In the November issue of The American Statistician the Editor published this comment by David J. Finney, Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of Edinburgh: “On a day in 1919 or 1920…I murmured silently to myself: ‘David, you are becoming a clever boy…you have learnt to stand on one leg. What next?’…I showed creditable numerical ability in saying to myself ‘2-1-0.’ I willed myself to make…an effort to lift the foot. I rapidly became aware of a sore bottom…I never tried again but memory of the pain has given me a prejudice against any form of extrapolation from particular to general.”

In 1798, Thomas Malthus created one of the most controversial extrapolations in history in An Essay on the Principle of Population. Based on the sketchy statistics of the time, he assumed that population grows geometrically (exponential), whereas food supplies increase at an arithmetic rate (linear). No wonder he became known as “Gloomy” Malthus! Fortunately, due to development of new agricultural regions and improvements in productivity from these lands, the mass misery of his projections did not happen…yet.

In 1972, I read a book called Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome think tank. They presented a series of Malthusian projections with consumption increasing exponentially relative to linear expansion of resources. I found it terribly depressing. It seemed certain to me from all the graphs that mankind would not last beyond 2000. As subsequent developments averted what seemed sure disaster, I became ever more wary of extrapolation, especially ones that predict doom and gloom.

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.”
— H. G. Wells

On the other hand, I’ve seen forecasts fizzle and become forgotten that turned out true — albeit much delayed. For example, in the spring of 1989 I co-taught a DOE class in the San Francisco Bay Area. One night my top-floor room shook so hard that it woke me up – it was an earthquake that registered a bit above 5 on the Richter scale. The next morning another earthquake rocked our training room – built on stilts just off shore on the Bay. It measured near 6. That led to a forecast that by week end there was a 20 percent probability of a really major quake. It did not materialize. However, in October, San Francisco suffered the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake – nearly 7 points on the Richter scale.

So, whereas little Finney took a fall from misguided extrapolation, Bay Area residents found themselves floored from what turned out to be a prophetically forecasted tremblor. I suppose one way of dealing with scenarios for the future is to expect, and plan, for the worst, but hope for the best, that is, hedge your bets. For example, try to keep two feet on the ground as often as possible, keep a hold on the bannister and look before you leap.