[gela]

Now let me propose a new study. What percentage of people in America get their information about health from a scientific journal as compared to the percentage of people who get their information about health form TV news or a newspaper? I would speculate that 90 percent of the population get it from a news source and not a scientific journal. If that speculation is correct then we have a problem because we cannot trust the news media to report studies that the station's programer might not like. The media depends on advertising from drug companies and from all those anti-smoking advertisments, do they not? Would they bite the hand that feeds them by a news story that would upset those who advertise and who spend millions for that air-space? Would bias reporting creep in concerning what we are informed about? Why do you think they outlawed tobacco advertising on TV? Because it would remove any bias towards favoring the millions that the tobacco industry would otherwise spend on TV advertising. Shifting favor to the millions spent on TV by anti-smoking organizations and the government's "prevention by education" programs (tax funded). Result - a onesided bombardment of health information over the TV media. That was a "reality check" for u-all.

Again with the conspiracy theories.

You fail to realise that not every country in the world has that bombardment of anti smoking adds.

Newspapers would love to get a story saying that smoking is harmless here. Because the government pays for the adds.
Newspapers always love the 'taxpayers money wasted' articles.
Btw. We don't have any anti smoking adds running atm; so Im sure the current affairs program would get more ratings (hence money) from a huge revelation and scandal like 'smoking is harmelss afterall'

Oh, and the media doesn't have the grip hold on the people that you might think. Ever heard of the socialist movement? They can just about blame anything on capitalism, yet they don't seem to have a problem with anti smokers.

They cannot confirm it by a study in another location using different questions, and a different number of people. Because they are not doing the same exact study. They might have 600 different studies but none of them are really testing another study, or repeating another study per-say - as required in Science.

They can confirm that no errors were in that singular study on New York; but they can also make a hypothesis and test it in other populations and countries.

That is exactly how you confirm it.

Do one study - develop a hypothesis (prediction) from that study.
Do more studies. If they all fulfill the original hypothesis then it can be regarded as true.
A hypothesis is meaningless if it only works for one type of experiment.

A hypothesis was developed 50 years ago. Studies up until today continue to confirm it.

For example: The link you provided said that the Aisan study reversed the findings of a simular study done in Chicago. The newspapers might have reported both studies and their conclusions. A science journal might publish both studies. So the public would believe what ever newstory they happened to come across - even if the findings did not conform to yet another study done in another country.

Perfect example. Hypothesis was made - hypothesis was tested - hypothesis failed the test.
Therefore, they either need to make a new hypothesis, or do some more tests.

The problem with that example is that all the studies done on smoking and lung cancer agree with eachother - regardless of country.