Hmmm. But what if you are one of those two?
--Mike On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 10:31 PM, Christopher D. Green <[email protected]>wrote: > > Here's another example of misleading medical statistics example you might > want to use in class. > http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/apr/11/bowel-cancer-soya > > The report says that more soy in the diet (it doesn't say how much more) > can reduce women's chance of death from bowel cancer by 30%. (Actually, it > says those in the top third of soya intake had a 30% decrease in bowel > cancer deaths, compared to the bottom third -- NOTE: not from the national > average -- but it doesn't give any indication of how much soy each group > actually ate.) > > So let's work the numbers. 16,600 women die from bowel cancer per year in > the UK. There are about 60 million people in the UK. Half are female: 30 > million. Lose the 20% children and we have 24 million women. > > So, the chance of dying of bowel cancers for women in any one year is: > 16,600/30 million = .0007, or 7 in 10,000. > > A 30% reduction would lower that chance to 5 in 10,000. > > So (even if the causal implication that is not actually demonstrated here > were correct), if increasing your soy intake by a fair bit could decrease > your chances of dying by bowel cancer by 30%, that would represent a tiny > reduction of just 2 in 10,000 per year. > > > Chris > -- > > Christopher D. Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 > Canada > > > > 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 > [email protected] > http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ > > ========================== > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
