Submission + - Why statistics lie, even though they look correct
Bizzeh writes: Why does it seem like everything gives you cancer these days? Well, it doesn’t, there is still very little that is known about what actually causes the mutation that brings on a cancerous tumour. The reason studies find that things like bacon, beef, soft drinks, chocolate and more or less anything that taste nice, can give you cancer is because, that is what the person conducting the study wants to find. To understand this, you first need to know how these studies work (for the most part). A questionnaire will be created 1. do you eat crisps, 2. do you eat chocolate, 3. do you drink soft drinks, and so on. These questionnaires will then be handed out to cancer patients, about 1000 or so to make the study "valid". Once all these have been completed, any question where more than 50% of people answered yes becomes a probable cause, more than 60% means "this gives you cancer", because all these people are doing this, and they all also have cancer. They then hand out the same questionnaire to the people who have gone into remission, or have been cured, or had a false positive result, and ask them the same questions, because most of them already believe this rubbish, they would have avoided most things on the list, so would answer no, and less than 50% of them would have answered yes, meaning the reverse test supports the original test, if you don’t have these things, you won’t have cancer. The problem with these tests is that the questions are very closed questions, designed to get you to answer yes, or no, not allowing an in-between number or a "maybe", restricting the number of points within the data to calculate, giving what seems to be a concrete result. The tests are designed this way, because whoever came up with the tests wants a positive or negative result for that particular thing based on their own like or dislike of that particular thing. This is why poor news outlets publish this rubbish, and real information is published in real scientific publications. So the next time somebody says "you can’t eat that" "you can’t do that" "because it gives you cancer", unless your licking a nuclear fuel rod or trying to eat a microwave, ask them to back up their statement with a scientific journal and then ask them to take a one way flight into the sun.
