Okay, so you hate cigarettes. You want them banned everywhere, including on the street and in the wide open country. You applaud employers who fire employees caught smoking in their own homes. After all, "science" has assured you that even a whiff of second-hand smoke will kill you!
Not so fast. Three decades ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the largest long-term second-hand-smoke study ever done. The upshot? Second-hand smoke not only does NOT seem to cause anyone any harm; it actually seems to reduce the chances of getting lung cancer for some of its "victims," like the wives of smokers.
That study received almost no coverage in the U.S., and the politically correct, pure-of-lung powers-that-be quickly forced WHO to bury it. Ditto for a number of smaller studies that have been conducted since then. Good luck trying to find any trace of them on the internet today.
But in 2013 a new study was reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. This account admitted there is no apparent connection between second-hand smoke and lung cancer. No connection. And it actually got some attention in U.S. media such as Forbes. One epidemiologist dared to ask if it wasn't time for an honest conversation about the evidence; according to columnist Jacob Sullum, he was "frustrated by the willingness of so many anti-tobacco activists and public health officials to overlook or minimize the weakness of the scientific case that secondhand smoke causes fatal illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease."
So here's my question for you: Does the fact that "science" has fibbed about this issue (for at least three decades) disturb you at all? Does it make you doubt its assertions in other areas -- say, just for instance, that evolution is "fact," as nasty little atheist scientist Richard Dawkins insists?
There are interesting parallels here, strange as it may seem -- because the evidence against evolution, and in favor of biblical creation, is truly overwhelming. And yet we are told that the majority of scientists, and an intellectually superior minority of laymen, are convinced that evolution is fact and the Bible is nothing more than myth.
In both cases, there seems to be an appalling lack of interest in the truth.
Does it matter? Aren't cigarettes bad? Isn't the Bible for fools?
I don't know about cigarettes, having smoked my last one more than 20 years ago. But I do know about the Bible. Its exhaustively documented scientific truth is 100% accurate, even though it contradicts evolution theory from start to finish. Yet its writers could not have known any of these things apart from divine inspiration.
That means that we can also trust what the Bible's writers tell us about eternal life, and how to find it. We can logically heed their warnings against believing "science so-called," including the apostle Paul's admonition in 1 Timothy 6: "Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge." And we can safely ignore the "No God! No heaven!" rantings of scientists like Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens (who now, I might add, knows how wrong he was).
The truth is, scientists are as deception-prone as the rest of us. They are just as susceptible to the herd mentality as any other human beings. And they are just as likely to be outright liars when it suits their purposes. This second-hand smoke study is just a rather interesting demonstration of all three assertions. I hope it makes at least a few skeptics take another, very serious look at what the Bible has to say about absolutely everything.
Not so fast. Three decades ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the largest long-term second-hand-smoke study ever done. The upshot? Second-hand smoke not only does NOT seem to cause anyone any harm; it actually seems to reduce the chances of getting lung cancer for some of its "victims," like the wives of smokers.
That study received almost no coverage in the U.S., and the politically correct, pure-of-lung powers-that-be quickly forced WHO to bury it. Ditto for a number of smaller studies that have been conducted since then. Good luck trying to find any trace of them on the internet today.
But in 2013 a new study was reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. This account admitted there is no apparent connection between second-hand smoke and lung cancer. No connection. And it actually got some attention in U.S. media such as Forbes. One epidemiologist dared to ask if it wasn't time for an honest conversation about the evidence; according to columnist Jacob Sullum, he was "frustrated by the willingness of so many anti-tobacco activists and public health officials to overlook or minimize the weakness of the scientific case that secondhand smoke causes fatal illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease."
So here's my question for you: Does the fact that "science" has fibbed about this issue (for at least three decades) disturb you at all? Does it make you doubt its assertions in other areas -- say, just for instance, that evolution is "fact," as nasty little atheist scientist Richard Dawkins insists?
There are interesting parallels here, strange as it may seem -- because the evidence against evolution, and in favor of biblical creation, is truly overwhelming. And yet we are told that the majority of scientists, and an intellectually superior minority of laymen, are convinced that evolution is fact and the Bible is nothing more than myth.
In both cases, there seems to be an appalling lack of interest in the truth.
Does it matter? Aren't cigarettes bad? Isn't the Bible for fools?
I don't know about cigarettes, having smoked my last one more than 20 years ago. But I do know about the Bible. Its exhaustively documented scientific truth is 100% accurate, even though it contradicts evolution theory from start to finish. Yet its writers could not have known any of these things apart from divine inspiration.
That means that we can also trust what the Bible's writers tell us about eternal life, and how to find it. We can logically heed their warnings against believing "science so-called," including the apostle Paul's admonition in 1 Timothy 6: "Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge." And we can safely ignore the "No God! No heaven!" rantings of scientists like Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens (who now, I might add, knows how wrong he was).
The truth is, scientists are as deception-prone as the rest of us. They are just as susceptible to the herd mentality as any other human beings. And they are just as likely to be outright liars when it suits their purposes. This second-hand smoke study is just a rather interesting demonstration of all three assertions. I hope it makes at least a few skeptics take another, very serious look at what the Bible has to say about absolutely everything.
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