I took a public speaking course way back in my university days. The class was about half mathematics and engineering majors, and half artsies. About 1/3 of the way through the term we had to do our first major speech to the class. Everyone tried to be polite and attentive, because of course our turn was coming.
One nice young lady chose to speak on the topic of smoking. During her talk, she told us that "If you quit smoking, it reduces your chance of death." Now, we all knew what she meant ... but at the same time, the concept enthralled all the mathies and engineers. Laughter, whispering and note-passing (P(death) < 1.0?) ensued, and I regret to say we distracted her thoroughly1.
The consensus of the techie half of the class was that we should all start smoking, and then quit. So our theory was really People who quit smoking might never die ... but close enough.
- We did apologise afterward, for whatever that was worth.