Imagine being told that smoking was good for your health. That’s exactly what happened to an entire generation, thanks to the tobacco industry’s manipulation of data. In the early 20th century, the average American smoked only 54 cigarettes per year; by 1963, that number had skyrocketed to 4,345 cigarettes per year. This dramatic increase was driven by manipulated numbers, junk science, and persuasive advertising campaigns, with regulators often complicit.
The ads and propaganda of the 1950s and 1960s are laughable today. Images of doctors wearing white coats and funny devices on their heads, labeled as throat specialists, physicians, and dentists, guaranteed the safety and health benefits of smoking cigarettes. “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette,” one ad claimed. These ads leveraged our authority bias, making us trust authority figures regardless of the actual content.
Other tobacco industry publications cited dubious research and misleading science. One piece stated, “An eminent scientist writes the head chemists in our research department: Chesterfield cigarettes are just as pure as the water you drink.” Another, published in the Saturday Evening Post, claimed, “Camels can literally relieve fatigue and irritability… Effect is natural.” Even the US government was once the world’s biggest buyer of cigarettes, pushing them to soldiers to sustain morale and discipline.
Under pressure from research showing that cigarettes were harmful, the tobacco industry published the first of many propaganda pieces in 1954. Reaching an estimated 43 million people through more than four hundred newspapers, A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers aimed to instill doubt about scientific research linking disease and smoking. They attacked the validity of the statistics, claiming they could apply to many other aspects of modern life.
Despite mounting evidence of the deadly effects of smoking, attentional bias—the tendency to focus on some aspects while ignoring others—kept smokers hooked. Scientific evidence points out that smoking is strongly supported by attentional bias that activates craving and urgency to smoke.
Today, we know that cigarettes are a Group 1 carcinogen, with the CDC stating, “Tobacco smoke has at least seventy chemicals that cause cancer.” This realization came at a high cost: the CDC estimates that smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the US each year.
We laugh at past misconceptions, thinking we wouldn’t make the same mistakes today. But in the grand scheme of history, these events occurred only moments ago. The manipulations and cognitive biases that influenced us then still affect us today. Another cigarette-like incident is happening now on a mass scale—we just don’t know it yet. In fifty years, our descendants will likely view our actions as laughable, much like we view the rise of smoking.
To uncover more about how biases and data manipulation shape our perceptions and decisions, read more in Think Like a Black Sheep. This book will guide you through understanding the hidden flaws in our thinking and help you navigate through the manipulations we face daily. Start your journey to greater awareness and critical thinking today. Read more in Think Like a Black Sheep and see the world with new eyes.
