TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “Politics is more difficult than physics.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index H > Wilhelm (William) C. Heuper Quotes

Wilhelm (William) C. Heuper
( - )

cancer researcher.

Science Quotes by Wilhelm (William) C. Heuper (1 quote)

If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one, if judged by the evidence on hand.
A cautious statement indicating that evidence was, in 1954, beginning to point to the connection between lung cancer and smoking.
— Wilhelm (William) C. Heuper
Quoted in 'Tobacco Industry Denies Cancer Tie'. New York Times (14 Apr 1954), 51. In Oliver E. Byrd, Health Yearbook (1954), 142. The newspaper article was a report 'that the Tobacco Industry Research Committee had made public a list of "quotations and statements authorized by 36 distinguished cancer authorities" denying that there was any proof establishing a link between smothing and lung cancer. The committee is the spokesman for the leading tobacco manufacturers and associations of tobacco growers.' Webmaster comments: So, the central news was the publication of a booklet (which was essentially statements carefully picked for the purpose of propaganda for the tobacco industry). The quoted comment of Dr. Heuper, of the National Cancer Institute, is often seen in a list of regrettable remarks—where it is always stated lacking the final qualifying phrase, 'if judged by the evidence on hand.' Thus his statement was not at all an outright denial that smoking and lung cancer were related, but was—in fact— a balanced viewpoint indicating that the evidence was not yet in place. In fact, at the time, there was much debate on what reliable conclusions could be drawn on the basis of existing conflicting evidence from various researchers. Dr. Heuper's career was spent actively protecting health by carefully investigating cancer risks from various domestic and industrial chemicals. The list of regrettable remarks presently widely circulating on the web, and frequently seen in publications, unfairly distorts the intent of Heuper's quotation by omitting the final phrase. What is regrettable is that a huge number of authors are republishing the distorted remark, without consulting a primary print source and examining its context. Again, at the time, even the position of the American Cancer Society was cautiously stated, and limited to their position to: 'The evidence to date justifies suspicion that cigarette smoking does, to a degree as yet undertermined, increase the likelihood of developing cancer of the lung....' (See the ACS quote for 17 Mar 1954).
Science quotes on:  |  Beginning (312)  |  Cancer (61)  |  Cigarette (26)  |  Connection (171)  |  Evidence (267)  |  Excessive (24)  |  Lung (37)  |  Lung Cancer (7)  |  Point (584)  |  Production (190)  |  Role (86)  |  Smoking (27)  |  Statement (148)  |  Tobacco (19)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.