I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That by Ben Goldacre Read Free Book Online Page A

South-East Asia, and some West Africans and Native Americans. People with Down’s syndrome have various other incidental anatomical differences too, if you’re interested, such as a single crease in their palm.
    Flash forward to 2007 – I think that’s where we are – to two Italian doctors. They offer their theory that the parallels between Down’s syndrome and ‘Oriental’ people go beyond this fleeting facial similarity. What is the evidence they have amassed? I offer it almost in its totality.
    One aspect, they say, is alimentary characteristics. ‘Down subjects adore having several dishes displayed on the table, and have a propensity for food which is rich in monosodium glutamate.’
    I, too, adore having several dishes displayed upon the table.
    Two doctors, in an academic journal, in 2007, go on: ‘The tendencies of Down subjects to carry out recreative-rehabilitative activities, such as embroidery, wicker-working, ceramics, book-binding, etc., that is renowned, remind [us of] the Chinese hand-crafts, which need a notable ability, such as Chinese vases, or the use of chopsticks employed for eating by Asiatic populations.’
    Perhaps you can think of cultural rather than genetic explanations for these observations.
    There’s more. ‘Down persons during waiting periods, when they get tired of standing up straight, crouch, squatting down, reminding us of the “squatting” position … They remain in this position for several minutes and only to rest themselves.’ Amazing. ‘This position is the same taken by the Vietnamese, the Thai, the Cambodian, the Chinese, while they are waiting at a bus stop, for instance, or while they are chatting.’
    And that’s not all. ‘There is another pose taken by Down subjects while they are sitting on a chair: they sit with their legs crossed while they are eating, writing, watching TV, as the Oriental peoples do.’
    To me – and I may be wrong – this article is so fantastical, so ridiculous, and so thoughtlessly crass, that it’s hard to experience anything like outrage. But it appears in a proper academic journal, published by Elsevier, with a respectable ‘impact factor’ – a measure of how frequently a journal is cited – of 1.299. I contacted the editor. He told me the paper was a very short, discursive and preliminary communication, floating a general idea for discussion and debate, and that taking scientific ideas out of their context could be misleading. I hope I am not misleading anybody. I contacted Elsevier, the journal publisher: they will consider making the article free to access, so that anyone can read it for themselves. You can reach your own conclusions.

Is This a Joke ?
    Guardian , 18 July 2009
    We’d all like to help the police do their job well. They, in turn, would like to have a massive database with DNA profiles of everyone who has been arrested, but not convicted of a crime. We worry that this is intrusive, but some of us are willing to make concessions – on our principles and the invasion of our privacy – in the name of preventing crimes. To do this, we’d like to know the evidence on whether this database is helpful, to help us make an informed decision.
    Luckily, the Home Office has now published a consultation paper on the subject. It defends the database by arguing that innocent people who have been arrested and released are basically criminals anyway, and go on to commit crimes in the future as much as guilty people do. ‘This,’ it says, ‘is obviously a controversial assertion.’ There is no reason for this assertion to be controversial: it’s a simple factual matter, and if it’s true, then you could easily assemble some good-quality evidence to prove it.
    The Home Office has assembled some evidence. This study, from the Jill Dando Institute, attached to the consultation paper as an appendix, is possibly the most unclear and badly presented piece of research I have ever seen in a professional environment.
    They