As Bailar and Gornik probed their own data further, they began to discern such forces counterpoised against each other with almost exquisite precision. When cancer mortality between 1970 and 1994 was split into two age groups, the counterbalancing of forces was immediately obvious: in men and women above fifty-five, cancer mortality had increased, while in men and women under fifty-five, cancer mortality had decreased by exactly the same proportion. (Part of the reason for this will become clear below.)
