::I can safely say I have never nor would I ever work for a tobacco company. My argument is that the statistics are not meaningful for the group size in question since for one thing the group size has not been accurately delimited. And for another the group has been selected by specifically identifying individual actresses that have been diagnosed at a young age. I'm sure there are hollywood actresses who have been diagnosed with breast cancer at a relatively old age and certainly ages much closer to or above the average stated in the article, however this has not been accounted for and in statistical terms there is a pre-existing bias towards the younger victims before any analysis is actually undertaken. You yourself also acknowledge the lack of complete numbers of those diagnosed within hollywood. The statistics regarding actual risk also differ temporally and spatially. Obviously hollywood actresses come from across the world and so the statistics that are more relevant to them would be those from their places of origin. Even within the USA there is variation in the chance of suffering from breast cancer. The different times at which the featured actresses were diagnosed also raises issues since the risk statistics have changed over time whereas the articles simply groups them all together. (also as you shall see i have edited the title of this section from both my original and your edit, to better reflect the nature of this discussion. [[User:RobertWDP|RobertWDP]] 12:35, 27 February 2009 (EST) | ::I can safely say I have never nor would I ever work for a tobacco company. My argument is that the statistics are not meaningful for the group size in question since for one thing the group size has not been accurately delimited. And for another the group has been selected by specifically identifying individual actresses that have been diagnosed at a young age. I'm sure there are hollywood actresses who have been diagnosed with breast cancer at a relatively old age and certainly ages much closer to or above the average stated in the article, however this has not been accounted for and in statistical terms there is a pre-existing bias towards the younger victims before any analysis is actually undertaken. You yourself also acknowledge the lack of complete numbers of those diagnosed within hollywood. The statistics regarding actual risk also differ temporally and spatially. Obviously hollywood actresses come from across the world and so the statistics that are more relevant to them would be those from their places of origin. Even within the USA there is variation in the chance of suffering from breast cancer. The different times at which the featured actresses were diagnosed also raises issues since the risk statistics have changed over time whereas the articles simply groups them all together. (also as you shall see i have edited the title of this section from both my original and your edit, to better reflect the nature of this discussion. [[User:RobertWDP|RobertWDP]] 12:35, 27 February 2009 (EST) |