Originally posted by frenchmov:Millions of people have died from lung cancer as a result of smoking. However, only 10-20% of people that smoke will develop lung cancer.
Never say never but if you use common sense you can come to a reasonable conclusion. Based on current studies, CTE is caused by repetitive striking of the head/concussions. Football players violently strike their heads multiple times per game in every game. IF the cause of CTE is accurate, then the only conclusion you'd be able to reach is that this afflicts the vast majority of football players. IF CTE is not caused by repeated blows to the head then obviously it's back to the drawing board.
Your CTE argument is basically the equivalent of saying "smoking causes lung cancer, therefore we can assume 99% of smokers have or will develop lung cancer." No we can't.
Your evidence is a brain study. The study is damning, but they didn't randomly sample dead NFL players - they relied on brain donations. As someone else mentioned, the people most likely to donate their brains for this sort of research are people that exhibited CTE symptoms in the first place.
There are many retired NFL players that seem half-there with a few screws loose, but there are many that are very sharp, articulate, and seemingly-normal (many TV hosts come to mind).
Again, I'm not downplaying anything, I believe that CTE is a serious issue, but you are making very liberal assumptions about how common it is. This is coming from someone that believes CTE could end the NFL completely.
