Stunning stupidity

In these intellectually retarded times, mistaking correlation for causation is so common that it takes something really special to grab my attention. But every once in a while, someone puts the cart before the horse in a way that is so monumentally bone-headed that it almost becomes a work of art.

For example, it seems obvious that people who have greater willpower will be more likely to give up smoking. Obvious, that is, unless you are the Daily Mirror ...

Quitting smoking gives you stronger willpower than current or non-smokers, study finds

Giving up smoking not only improves your health – it raises your willpower, too.

Quitters have the strongest activity in their brain's frontal lobes, which control behaviour, a study found.

Experts took MRI scans of current, ex and non-smokers as they performed tasks to test skills linked to smoking, such as avoiding distraction by cigarette-related images.

Smokers lost concentration before others, the Trinity College Dublin study said. Prof Hugh Garavan added in NeuroImage that quitting helped "exercise control".

Wow. Just wow.