[nonbel]

What were the problems in that paper? The good stuff is that they were able to come up with estimates for stem cell divisions and were able to see a correlation with the cancer risk.

The bad stuff was the usual misinterpreting correlation coefficients and p-values (this is standard, found in pretty much every paper) and that the data is messy/incomplete. I mean, sure more people should be working on figuring out the number of stem cell divisions by tissue and other nations should collect data of the same quality as SEER...

If it was just another standard "smoking/sunlight/etc causes cancer" paper with the same issues there would not have been this response. It even says so in the atlantic, people think this information undermines their public health campaigns:

>'The paper triggered a hailstorm of criticism. Some scientists chastised the methods. Why did they ignore common cancers like breast and prostate? Why did they only focus on the U.S.? Others accused the duo of undermining public health. Many personal choices, from quitting smoking to staying lean, can dramatically reduce one’s risk of cancers, but why would you bother if you read headlines saying that these diseases are “largely down to bad luck?”' https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/no-cance...