What You Don't Know About Junk Science Can Harm You

Who in America hasn’t seen at least one billboard making the claim that secondhand smoke kills? A claim presumably based upon scientific analysis. Believing that it’s not possible to make such an analysis, I began to wonder how such a claim could even arise. And then I remembered a story that might explain the whole thing.

Once upon a time a Cossack officer rode into a small Russian town. As he glanced to his left, he noticed a fence with a lot of small chalk circles, each with a bullet hole right in the middle. He had never seen such marksmanship before, and decided to seek out the shooter to express his admiration.

Upon making inquiries, the Cossack officer was chagrined to learn that the marksman was an itinerant peddler named Max. His irritation was understandable. After all, to Cossack officers, itinerant peddlers were nothing more than dirt. To be abused, mistreated. Certainly not to be admired.

However, being an officer and a gentleman, he searched for Max until he found him. Then with great difficulty, he complimented Max on his outstanding shooting ability. Max replied somewhat diffidently that he really didn’t deserve any praise. You see, he couldn’t shoot well at all. So what he did to impress people was shoot holes in the fence first, and then drew a circle around each.

Now in the case of the secondhand smoke billboards, I suspect that the people who claim that secondhand smoke kills are not very good at scientific analysis. And so to impress the public, they came up with the conclusion first and then the analysis. What’s significant to me is that even with such a contrived approach, they still can’t get the chalk circles to completely wrap around the holes.

Think about it.