Steaming Pile of Psuedo-Science

Sometimes it's hard work, evaluating a claim about the world, even a scientific one. You have to look at the evidence, the data being presented; the methodologies employed, both in sampling and analysis; the reasoning and hypotheses used in that analysis; then you have to be aware of potential biases, in the researchers and their backers, both ideological and financial.

Other times you can read a stupefyingly ridiculous, mentally defective idea and think to yourself, "Wow, these people are complete fucking morons."

Like when a 'scientist' claims that violent media is a health threat on par, only slightly less damaging... than smoking cigarettes.

Yes, you read that correctly. A 'scientist', or at least a man occupying an office in a university and probably utilizing the title 'Professor', claims to have evaluated fifty years worth of studies on the relationship between viewing violent media and aggression and come to a shocking conclusion -- that violent media, be it movies, television or videogames, is almost as bad for the public health as smoking cigarettes.

Now now, stop laughing. Let's see what he's saying in his press rounds.

After reviewing more than 50 years of research on the impact of violence in the media, L. Rowell Huesmann, of the University of Michigan, and his colleague Brad Bushman concluded that only smoking posed a greater danger.

"Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer," he said in a statement.

Source: Yahoo News

So, ok. We have a claim here. Smoking deathsticks is only *slightly* worse for the public than watching violence of any sort. We can evaluate that.

How damaging is smoking to the American public?

Regular smokers are estimated to live to 2.5^[3] to 10^[4] years less than nonsmokers.^[3] About one-half of male smokers will die of illness due to smoking.^[5]

Tobacco related illnesses kill 440,000 USA citizens per year,^[6] about 1,205 per day, making it the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.

Source: Wikipedia (Health Effects of Tobacco Smoking)

Now, of course, we want to be fair. What does the Wikipedia article mean by 'tobacco related illnesses' and how much of that can be attributed to smoking, directly?

Well, if you do a little googling on the Wikipedia source, and its source, you can find yourself at the current CDC page on the subject, which reads, in part:

Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and reducing quality of life and life expectancy (1). This report assesses the health consequences and productivity losses attributable to smoking in the United States during 1997--2001. CDC calculated national estimates of annual smoking-attributable mortality (SAM), years of potential life lost (YPLL) for adults and infants, and productivity losses for adults. The findings indicated that, during 1997--2001, cigarette smoking and exposure to tobacco smoke resulted in approximately 438,000 premature deaths in the United States, 5.5 million YPLL, and $92 billion in productivity losses annually.

Source: The Centers for Disease Control

So as it turns out, pretty much the whole figure. Smoking ciggies kills 438k Americans every year, shortens lifespan by 5.5 million man-years, and costs us 92 billion dollars in lost productivity alone.

This ignores health-care costs of course. But surely those can't be that high, can the---

Wait, wait, here we are.

Cigarette smoking continues to impose substantial health and financial costs on society. In 1998, smoking-attributable health-care expenditures were estimated at $75.5 billion (2). During 1997--2001, these expenditures plus the productivity losses ($92 billion) exceeded $167 billion per year.

Source: The Centers for Disease Control

So now we have some figures for how much damage smoking does to the well-being of the American public. Massive, tragic loss of blood and treasure, lives thrown into the meat-grinder at a truly staggering rate. Every single one of the premature deaths preventable.

But what about all those murders that occur across this country? The slayings, the stabbings, the killing sprees, the rampages? The Columbines, the robberies gone wrong, the stick-ups, the road rage? The fruit of an Evil and Corrupt Society? Why, 438 thousand deaths is probably just a drop in the bucket compared with what CNN and the local news tells me is a neverending tide of blood.

Let's inquire as to just how much carnage is being visited upon the American people, every year. We'll assume that all murder, all non-negligent manslaughter, in short, every single death caused by one American upon another intentionally, is caused by those foul purveyors of filth in Hollywood, New York and Tokyo. It's only fair; surely everyone has seen something violent, and therefore at least the violent media *contributed* to their path to self-destruction, according to the esteemed researchers. So what's the damage?

From the Uniform Crime Report for 2006, a year in which approximately 438k Americans died from smoking...

17,034 Murders/Non-Negligent Manslaughters

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report 2006

Err... wow.

I think we have enough information to evaluate these claims now. Watching violent media, ie, television, movies, videogames, reading comic books, one presumes regular books as well, has been labeled as a threat to public health only 'slightly' less dangerous than smoking cigarettes.

Smoking causes 438k deaths in America per year, costs 167 billion in combined health and productivity costs, spends 5 million man-years of life in premature death. Assuming every violent death in America was the direct result of a violent type of media, it would still only account for 18k deaths a year; the television, movie and videogame industries are all profit-generation centers rather than cost-centers to society, with billions of dollars in income. They pay wages to thousands, even if, as the WGA strike shows, sometimes not nearly enough of a wage.

For example:

Movie Industry Revenue, 2006: 42.6 Billion
Source: Hollywood Reporter

To see on the other hand how little the people who write those movies get, go see the good folks at United Hollywood.

Source: United Hollywood

This leaves out entirely any cultural contribution these industries provide, any of the intangible benefits that you might get from enjoying a good book with some Bad Things in it, or seeing a movie with friends, or watching a television show after a long day's slog. We don't need to get into a debate on utilitarian benefits, on the marketplace of ideas, in order to debunk this so-called study. The First Amendment never comes into play, nor Orwell or Bradbury, Stalin or book burning. We can judge this matter solely on the basis of lives lost, dollars spent, and work down the sewer. What a large, large sewer it is, too.

There is simply no basis in objective reality for the idea that watching Pulp Fiction is in the same class of behavior as lighting up. These people are on the screaming lunatic fringe, and should be ashamed. I could go into a moral tirade about all the people who've lost friends and family to lung cancer, throat cancer, mouth cancer, colon cancer, etc, from smoking, but I won't stoop to theatrics like these sad individuals.

We deserve better when it comes to discussions of public policy than that. We deserve better science than this.