it’s the actual act of smoking or knowing one has smoked [that causes lung cancer]
Both of these are invalidated by the assumption:
She knows that smoking is strongly correlated with lung cancer, but only because there is a common cause – a condition that tends to cause both smoking and cancer.
I’m not sure we disagree; as James said, whether one actually smokes provides information about lung cancer, which is possible regardless of whether smoking is the cause of the cancer. My comment was intended to be more general than causality.
Both of these are invalidated by the assumption:
I’m not sure we disagree; as James said, whether one actually smokes provides information about lung cancer, which is possible regardless of whether smoking is the cause of the cancer. My comment was intended to be more general than causality.