Great read. Very informative. The man is obviously biased as he is a smoker himself and a lawyer so he comes from a certian social class. He criticizes scientists for starting with a conclusion that smoking is bad and researching to prove it. While at the same time he obviously thinks smoking is totally fine and does his own research to prove it. I mean this is a common problem in science. Who in the world is unbiased? Realistically, all scientists, no matter how neutral, go into a study/experiment with some idea of what the results will be. This is the hypothesis. The real test of a good scientist is being able to abandon preconceptions once experimental data does not support it. Which is, of course, hard since we are all human.
He seems to conclude thst smoking is not bad for you at all. Which I really can't accept if fo other reason than personal experince. pipes and cigars aside, cigarettes make you feel like crap. Science showing that smoking is bad for your health is pretty overwhelming.
Of course, I have to agree that the statistics on smoking are constantly being manipulated by the media (for fantastic headlines) and by anti-tobacco organizations (for their own benefits). It is frustrating to see just how much politics and money is involved in what is supposed to be science. Although, I guess, these days you can't really separate the three.
What made me very angry was to find out that the black lung images on tobacco are not the lungs of smokers but the lungs of cancer patience which will look like that reguardless of whether the person smoked or not.
All in all a lot of great information but should be taken with a grain of salt. Don't just regurgitate the information here and shove it in peoples fqces. Because then you are no better than the anti tobacco nannies
