How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking

by Jordan Ellenberg

Berkson, like Fisher, was more apt to believe the “constitutional hypothesis,” that some preexisting difference between nonsmokers and smokers accounted for the relative healthiness of the abstainers: If 85 to 95 per cent of a population are smokers, then the small minority who are not smokers would appear, on the face of it, to be of some special type of constitution. It is not implausible that they should be on the average relatively longevous, and this implies that death rates generally in this segment of the population will be relatively low. After all, the small group of persons who successfully resist the incessantly applied blandishments and reflex conditioning of the cigaret advertisers are a hardy lot, and, if they can withstand these assaults, they should have relatively little difficulty in fending off tuberculosis or even cancer!