Shamefully, I have obviously been spending longer looking through Crackpot American websites for my black humour fix. It appears I have totally overlooked an potentially rich strain of madness and bad science in the green and pleasant land.<\/p>\n

The “leader” I had to this was found in an article titled “CANCER IS DUE TO ‘FATE,’ BRITONS BELIEVE<\/a>” which was produced by AFP, although I found it on an American website<\/a>. It is not as bad as the alarmist headline tries to make out, however it is a sign that education in the UK really is a thing of the past. The first few paragraphs read as follows:<\/p>\n

LONDON (AFP)\u00e2\u20ac\u201dMore than a quarter of people believe that fate alone will determine whether they get cancer, not their lifestyle choices, according to a survey conducted by charity Cancer Research UK.<\/p>\n

The poll of more than 4,000 adults across the country asked people if they thought they could reduce their risk of getting cancer or whether it was out of their hands.<\/p>\n

A total of 27 percent of people said cancer was down to fate, with more women than men believing cancer was a matter of destiny than prevention through measures such as quitting smoking or eating healthily.<\/p>\n

Among those from the most deprived areas, the figure rose to 43 percent but fell to 14 percent in the most privileged areas.<\/p>\n

The survey also found that smokers were 50 percent more likely than non-smokers to believe that getting cancer was the luck of the draw.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is a strange world we live in.<\/p>\n

Is this bad science? Bad education? Both? Neither? To me it is a case of people not realising how their choices affect things, although I also suspect there is a bit of “out of proportion” going on here. I am worried about what the source of this “fate” is? Is it simply a total lack of understanding as to chance and probability? Do people think God sends them cancer as a reward\/punishment\/test? Who knows.
\nI think I will have to spend some time looking for UK crackpot websites now – surely we have them?<\/p>\n

Share this:<\/h3>

• <\/span>Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
• <\/span>Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
• More<\/span><\/a><\/li>
• <\/li><\/ul>
  • <\/span>Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
  • <\/span>Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
  • <\/li>
  • <\/span>Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
  • <\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Shamefully, I have obviously been spending longer looking through Crackpot American websites for my black humour fix. It appears I have totally overlooked an potentially rich strain of madness and bad science in the green and pleasant land. The “leader” … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

    Share this:<\/h3>

    • <\/span>Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
    • <\/span>Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
    • More<\/span><\/a><\/li>
    • <\/li><\/ul>
      • <\/span>Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
      • <\/span>Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
      • <\/li>
      • <\/span>Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)<\/span><\/a><\/li>
      • <\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pnUcF-7y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.whydontyou.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}