>"There are people like Richard Lindzen, who even extends his gadflyism to smoking and lung cancer (and as somebody who sees the DNA damage in whole genome sequencing of lung cancers from smokers, boy is he ever stupidly wrong there.)"

Is this true or fake news? The closest I could find is this: http://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/05/lindzen-dismis...

Also, seeing "DNA damage in whole genome sequencing of lung cancers from smokers" is irrelevant to the smoking-cancer link since you are sampling from the cancers... That only supports a link between cancer and "DNA damage".

"and as somebody who sees the DNA damage in whole genome sequencing of lung cancers from smokers, boy is he ever stupidly wrong there"

Hm, but does the dna in those lungs look much different, than the lungs of nonsmoking people with lungcancer? (Seriously asking)

Yes, the differences are massive. There's a huge signature of "bulky adduct" repair in smokers' samples. This looks different than, say, UV damage. See, for example, signature #4 from this paper:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7463/full/nature1...

Thanks, thats interesting

>"All cancers are caused by somatic mutations"

Its strange that epistasis cites that paper so freely since he has expressed skepticism about this idea in the past. In fact I may have discussed that exact paper with him awhile back. The layperson probably wouldn't realize it but this is a very hubristic first sentence, almost purposefully offensive.