Researchers at the University College London explored how much of a person's life can be shortened by smoking. "[It] works out to be almost seven hours of life lost per pack," says the study's lead author.
Population statistics don’t generally map very well to individuals. The existence of outliers doesn’t disprove the population data either.
As an example:
“Men are (on average) taller than women” does not mean “all men are taller than all women”. But that the average height of men is higher, and the extreme ends of height are higher. The existence of short men does not disprove the average being taller.
That said cigarettes are clearly a high risk / zero reward sort of activity that is crazy to see continue into 2025.
90 year old has developed a chronic cough/sinus infection and she’s spent a lot of time talking to ENTs but she hasn’t given up the one thing that’s likely causing the problem. She’s been calling it allergies for about a year now.
If 50% of population accounts for the average, does that mean there is another 50% is an outlier? “On average” is just as meaningless as anecdotal evidence.
This is what angers me about stories like this…
Population statistics don’t generally map very well to individuals. The existence of outliers doesn’t disprove the population data either.
As an example:
“Men are (on average) taller than women” does not mean “all men are taller than all women”. But that the average height of men is higher, and the extreme ends of height are higher. The existence of short men does not disprove the average being taller.
That said cigarettes are clearly a high risk / zero reward sort of activity that is crazy to see continue into 2025.
Just because you don’t think there’s a reward doesn’t mean there is no reward.
90 year old has developed a chronic cough/sinus infection and she’s spent a lot of time talking to ENTs but she hasn’t given up the one thing that’s likely causing the problem. She’s been calling it allergies for about a year now.
But some asshole saw snow outside in 2009 and said “look at all this global warming” thus disproving it all.
/s
If 50% of population accounts for the average, does that mean there is another 50% is an outlier? “On average” is just as meaningless as anecdotal evidence.
What an odd thing to say
It doesn’t.
No.
It’s not…
You don’t seem to understand how averages work and I’m not sure I can help you.