The most retarded 'argument' I've ever seen

I came across this article earlier today, h/t to Longrider at Orphans of Liberty, and so it's about time I made another blog post. I'm amused and shocked that this sort of tripe still passes muster from anyone old enough not need help from the teacher to tie their shoelaces.

The article starts off with a bold claim:

Secondhand smoking is more dangerous than main smoking. It creates more serious health hazards. It is the cause of many modern diseases.

Wow! It should have been banned first, then, right? Since it's more dangerous?

There's a discussion of how "voluntary organizations and governments" have checked the "evil effects of smoking", leaving one in no doubt as to the hand-wringing credentials of the author, and then we get to the meat of the argument:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because ...

Yes? Yes?! Because? We're quivering with antici...pation here!

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because it contains more than 50 substances that can cause cancer and other hazards through passive smoking.

Wait, what?

Those "50 substances" aren't being sucked into the smoker's lungs? Being breathed by the smoker, with their nose mere inches from the cigarette? Perhaps the "50 substances" are scared of fire and therefore only affect people more than six feet away from a lit cigarette...

Secondhand smoke is "more dangerous" than smoking purely because it is "dangerous". And it's only "dangerous" by tautology. This is not an argument. Saying that something is, I quote, "more dangerous" requires an actual comparison of the danger.

Well, the article does have a second try:

Since the secondhand smoke has higher concentrations of cancer-causing agents called carcinogens than the main smoke from the smoker, [...]

That's right. Secondhand smoke, from the combustion of a cigarette, contains more carcinogens than, um, the other smoke from the same combustion of the same cigarette. And at a higher concentration, because spreading that smoke through a 32m³ volume of air in a room makes it more concentrated than containing it in the 0.004m³ volume of the smoker's lungs. It's not diluted eight thousand times or anything. There's no attempt to cite a reference for this claptrap, it's simply thrown out there as a 'fact': smoke coming out of a cigarette is 'more dangerous' to non-smokers. Perhaps smokers build up an immunity to the effects? Science demands answers!

There's a bit of a correlation/causation conflation to 'prove' that secondhand smoke is dangerous, but that's it. Apparently secondhand smoke is dangerous because some non-smokers living with smokers die. Guess what? Everybody dies. It's not even that they died of something potentially smoking-related. Heart disease. Y'know, the #1 killer in the Western World, caused by a lifetime of fatty foods and just generally getting old.

This is like someone has heard about arguments, but hasn't quite understood how they work. Yes, arguments usually contain the word "because"; that doesn't mean that everything containing the word "because" is an argument. There's the whole 'logic' thing to consider, too. Let's have some fun with examples...

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because it contains more than 50 substances that can cause cancer

How about:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because the sky is blue

Or:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because my garden wall isn't three feet high

Maybe:

This secondhand smoke is more dangerous than the main smoking because the giraffe is made of brightly-coloured kites

All of which make about as much logical sense

- KoW