Collection: More Doctors Smoke Camels

Science, Trust, and Changing Evidence

• Multiple commenters stress that “science” is a process, not a fixed authority or ad slogan. It updates with new data.
• Some argue “the science” never truly said smoking was harmless; rather, industry PR and ads did, while evidence of harm accumulated from the 1930s–50s.
• Others use the smoking example to justify broad skepticism of scientific claims and institutions, especially when messaging later changes.
• Distinction is made between rational non-trust (treating a source as providing no evidence) vs reflexively believing the opposite of what a distrusted source says.

Covid, Public Health Messaging, and Skepticism

• A large subthread debates “trust the science” during Covid.
• One side emphasizes:
  • Deference to expert consensus vs “Uncle on Facebook.”
  • Vaccines greatly reduce severe disease and overall risk, even if not perfect.
  • Guidance changed as knowledge and supply (e.g., masks) changed; that’s how science works.
• The other side highlights:
  • Strong early statements (e.g., vaccinated people “don’t carry the virus”) that later proved overstated.
  • Early discouragement of masks, later reversal, and perceived censorship of dissent.
  • Claims that some low‑risk groups saw higher perceived vaccine risk than disease risk.
• Disagreement over whether mistakes and changing guidance justify broad distrust, or instead illustrate normal scientific revision.

Historical Smoking Evidence and Industry Behavior

• Commenters note early epidemiological links between smoking and lung cancer by mid‑20th century, plus much older cultural suspicion of tobacco harms.
• Tobacco companies funded “science” and PR to create doubt and generate friendly narratives, including hiring authors to attack anti‑smoking statistics.
• Examples given of conflicts of interest (e.g., heart associations and stress research historically funded by tobacco).

Advertising Tactics and Ethics

• The “More Doctors Smoke Camels” line is dissected as statistically irrelevant persuasion: doctors have no special knowledge of which brand is safer.
• Discussion of how the survey behind the slogan was biased (free samples then asking for “favorite brand” or “what’s in your pocket”).
• Older ads’ long copy, “costlier tobaccos,” and doctor imagery are seen as attempts to signal quality and health, not truth.
• Modern parallels drawn to advertorials, “premium” branding, “climate neutral” claims, and data‑driven optimization of attention.

Gender Targeting and Consumer Power

• Several note these Camel doctor ads skew toward women, contrasting with later hyper‑masculine campaigns like the Marlboro Man.
• Explanations offered: women’s magazines as placement, women as key household purchasers, and women as a growth market once many men already smoked.
• Historical references to campaigns like “Torches of Freedom” and early Marlboro marketing to women are mentioned.

Modern “Cigarettes” and Broader Lessons

• Commenters speculate on current harms analogous to mid‑century cigarettes: social media, sugar, ultra‑processed foods, political and medical advertising.
• There is agreement that advertising remains about emotional manipulation, not objective truth, and that media summaries of “the science” are often sloppy or overconfident.
• Some argue that to really know what science says, one must examine primary literature and understand its limits—something most people cannot do directly.