This page includes my comments on legal and political decisions and stances which I consider to be cases of faulty reasoning combined with political correctness run amuck, and links to other sites.
My writings are in black. Plagiarized text is in maroon, sometimes highlighted by me in red.
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. . . Advertising ___ Causation: law vs science ___ Cause of death? Junk science in court
. . . Challenger tragedy ___ Chances of dying ___ Crash: why vehicles crash page ___ Richard Feynman
. . . Health page ___ Myths page ___ Nuclear power ___ One Hundred Authors Against Einstein
. . . Perceived vs actual risk ___ RADIATION RISKS AND LINEARITY SOUND SCIENCE?
. . . Risk page___ Risk-theory page ___ Smoking does not cause lung cancer (JunkLaw1)
. . . Traffic-calming page
. . . No articles yet. I plan to write one. Some of what I have to say is already written in or linked to in the following:
Causation: law vs science and many of the links above.
BENETTON SPA: http://www.asa.org.uk/statistics/1996/top10/advertisers96/benetton_96.asp
Complaint:
Objections to:
1. an advertisement in . . . magazines; and 2. a
poster. Both showed three
disembodied hearts with the words "WHITE",
"YELLOW" and "BLACK" superimposed over them in bold type. The complainants believed
the advertisements were disgusting and offensive.
Adjudication:
1. Complaints not
upheld.
The advertisers said the advertisement had been devised with the
approval of . . . a civil rights organisation .
. . The Authority considered that the advertisement's
appearance in magazines that had young and broadminded readers
was acceptable.
2. Complaints upheld.
The Authority was concerned that the poster was likely to cause
serious and widespread offence . . .
NISSAN MOTORS GB Ltd: http://www.asa.org.uk/statistics/1996/top10/advertisers96/nissan_96.asp
Complaint:
Objections to two posters, for the Terrano Outlander four-wheel
drive vehicle, that were headlined "4x4 play". The first poster
featured the vehicle superimposed onto a woman's body, which was
decorated to simulate hilly terrain. One of the woman's breasts
was visible. The second
featured a man's body in a similar manner. The complainants
objected that the advertisements were offensive. . . .
Adjudication:
Complaints upheld.
The advertisers . . . argued that people's
responses in their research suggested they linked independence
and the freeing of sexual inhibitions with motor cars. The
Authority noted that there was evidence of this in the research
but disagreed that this justified the advertising approach .
. . Many people had already been offended . . . .
The Authority asked the advertisers to withdraw the
advertisements . . . it considered the second
advertisement acceptable in this medium, the Authority asked the
advertisers to not use the first advertisement in these or other
magazines that had many readers outside their target market.
PHILIP MORRIS EUROPE SA: http://www.asa.org.uk/statistics/1996/top10/advertisers96/philmorris_96.asp
Complaint:
Action on Smoking and Health . . . and several
members of the public objected to a series of national press advertisements that compared the risk of
contracting lung cancer from passive smoking with other risks to
health from everyday activities, including eating biscuits, eating pepper frequently and
drinking ordinary chlorinated water. The advertisements were
headlined "SECOND-HAND TOBACCO SMOKE IN PERSPECTIVE"
and referred to several studies, including one published in the
Lancet. The complainants objected that:
1. it was unfair and misleading to compare the risks associated with consuming products such as biscuits, pepper and chlorinated water with passive smoking; and
2. the advertisements misrepresented the findings of the studies. . . .
Adjudication:
1. Complaints not
upheld.
. . . The Authority concluded that the approach
was acceptable in principle as long as the information on which
the comparison was based was reliable.
2. Complaints upheld.
The advertisers believed that the studies were comparable and
that they had accurately quoted the relative risk figures from
the studies. . . . The Authority noted that,
except for the passive smoking risk figure, . . .
the results were from single studies and had not been verified by
repeat studies; . . . The Authority therefore
concluded that the comparison of the reported relative risks was
invalid. . . . gave the misleading impression
that passive smoking had been conclusively proved to pose less
danger to the health of UK consumers than the five activities
placed above it in the table . . . The Authority
asked the advertisers to withdraw the ad . . .
statistics: http://www.asa.org.uk/statistics/1996/top10/index.asp Top 10 advertisers by complaints : 1996. In 1996, 8409 advertisements attracting a total of 12,055 complaints were the subject of ASA scrutiny. Following inverstigation, 720 advertisements were found to break the Codes and were withdrawn or amended.. . .
Has details (including picture) of ten decisions, including that of BENETTON, NISSAN MOTORS, and PHILIP MORRIS above.
See also Cause of death? Junk science in court.
Epidemiology article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/implants/legal/defensejournal2.html FRONTLINE / WGBH Educational Foundation / www.wgbh.org. An epidemiologic view of causation: how it differs from the legal. International Association of Defense Counsel. (A good backgrounder on theories of causation, relative risk, statistical significance and, on what epidemiology can and can't tell you.) Jan, 1994. By Nancy A. Dreyer.
THE PROCESS of determining causation and, in fact, the ultimate need to determine causation is different in law and science. In law, the goal of fairness seems to be paramount. Decisions are required, no matter whether the true causes are known or understood. In contrast, scientists have been described as "practitioners of a discipline that seeks, but never finds, absolute truth" and as people who use a "variety of criteria to evaluate data in conditions that provide less than total certainty."(1)
If lawyers and courts knew how epidemiologists look at causation and were aware of some of the methods used to provide scientific inferences, perhaps they would recognize the case for accepting the tentativeness of science and the scientific process. At a minimum, this knowledge would enhance their facility to make fair and equitable decisions.
WHAT IS EPIDEMIOLOGY? . . .
In epidemiologic terms, a cause is an "act or event or state of nature" -- for simplicity, it may be referred to as an exposure -- "which initiates or permits, alone or in conjunction with other causes, a sequence of events, resulting in an effect."(4) In most instances, the exposure is neither necessary nor sufficient by itself to cause the disease. Rather, most causes are components of at least one sufficient cause.
Causes that inevitably produce the effect are sufficient. . . . Usually diseases do not have a single cause; rather, they have a constellation of component causes that, taken together, become sufficient to cause disease. . . .
A. Spurious Methods
. . . Because a group agrees doesn't mean there is necessarily a justification for the agreement. That is reminiscent of One Hundred Authors Against Einstein, a collection of essays published during the 1930s by German physicists, which was intended to discredit the theory of relativity. Einstein is reported to have responded, "Were my theory wrong, it would have taken but one person to show it." . . .
ALL METHODS ARE FALLIBLE
The important message is that all legitimate methods of scientific inference are fallible. The decision-making mold, as in statistical significance testing and courtroom verdicts, forces choices that proper scientific inference avoids. Just because both courtrooms and significance testing aim toward decision making, it doesn't follow that significance testing is a good method for the courts. . . .
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You can e-mail me at waynerp@sympatico.ca