(source)
|
Sir Richard Doll
(28 Oct 1912 - 24 Jul 2005)
English epidemiologist.
|
Science Quotes by Sir Richard Doll (2 quotes)
Basic research is not the same as development. A crash program for the latter may be successful; but for the former it is like trying to make nine women pregnant at once in the hope of getting a baby in a month’s time.
— Sir Richard Doll
In New Scientist, November 18, 1976.
The risk of developing carcinoma of the lung increases steadily as the amount smoked increases. If the risk among non-smokers is taken as unity and the resulting ratios in the three age groups in which a large number of patients were interviewed (ages 45 to 74) are averaged, the relative risks become 6, 19, 26, 49, and 65 when the number of cigarettes smoked a day are 3, 10, 20, 35, and, say, 60—that is, the mid-points of each smoking group. In other words, on the admittedly speculative assumptions we have made, the risk seems to vary in approximately simple proportion with the amount smoked.
— Sir Richard Doll
William Richard Shaboe Doll and Austin Bradford Hill (1897-1991 British medical statistician) 'Smoking and Carcinoma of the Lung', British Medical Journal, 1950, ii, 746.
See also:
- 28 Oct - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Doll's birth.
- Geography of Disease, by Richard Doll. - book suggestion.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
