On the Beat

LJ is full of people today

1. reviewing their year's posting


2. saying that no one is on LJ any more

Which seems rather backwards.

Some people have been posting about quite how quiet LJ has been over the last week or two.

Me, I have barely written anything since I got back from holiday two weeks ago.

I haven't just been in the mood.

This may change, some time.

But I am reading, and, occasionally, commenting.

David Aaronovitch has done some digging on a commonly quoted fact and discovered it is actually a fiction.

Excellent stuff - and a warning not to believe everything one reads - anywhere.

(via @bengoldacre on Twitter.)

There have been lots of reports linking an increase in a range of cancers in women with drinking even small amounts of alcohol - a glass or two of wine a day.

This must have been worrying.

The blog Pyjamas in Bananas has taken the data and analysed it (via @BenGoldacre on Twitter - he runs the blog Bad Science).

To quote from their analysis:

I think it is clear that the difference between a drink a day and less than 2 drinks a week (this was the reference group because non-drinkers often includes ex-alcoholics or those who have given up because they are already sick) is less than convincing.

Looking at their analysis, it seems to make sense. It is so long since I have done that kind of stats that I couldn't challenge it, but based on the graphs they present, any increase in risk at low level of alcohol is not statistically significant.

I'll drink to that!

Ben Goldacre has done an excellent job of debunking the various news stories surrounding Facebook, such as "Social websites harm children's brains", and "How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer".

Sorry - that should have read "the Daily Mail's list of the causes of cancer" shock!

(via Ben Goldacre on Twitter)

Charlotte Gore has linked to a post on News Geeks which critically looks at the facts of the Government's Change4Life campaign, and concludes that they really don't stack up. It's worth reading.

By the way, the home page of Change4Life is patronising as fuck. I won't be going back there.

Ben Goldacre, who writes the Bad Science column in the Guardian and has a blog of the same name, takes a critical and sceptical look at the way the media treat scientific topics. He looks at the original data, testing and challenging popular views, and generally tackling - well, bad science.

One of his bugbears is, understandably, the misinformation about the MMR (mumps, measles and rubella) vaccine. Some people have supposed a link between MMR and the onset of autism, which is not supported by the evidence. As a result, the uptake of MMR has declined, and this may be one reason for the worrying rise in measles in England that was announced today.

Earlier this week, Goldacre posted an analysis of a programme broadcast on LBC, a London radio station, which was full of misreprentations and - well, bad science.

Goldacre has now posted about contact from LBC's lawyers:

"LBC’s lawyers say that the clip I posted is a clear infringement of their copyright, that I must take it down immediately, that I must inform them when I have done so, and that they “reserve their rights”...

The clip I posted was, to my mind, hideous and unremitting: it went on for so long.

In fact it was so long, so unrelenting, and so misinformed that I really couldn’t express to you how hideous it was. If I tried, without the audio, you might think I was exaggerating."

Such bullying by a large corporation implies that their representatives can say what they want, without factual backing or concern for the effect of actions. I am all for free speech; but also for such speech to be challenged.

Edit: Cory Doctorw has written an account of what the threat of measles means in his part of London, over on Boing Boing.

Following matgb's post the other day comes another warning that all may not be well in LJ-land, which fruminousb linked to.

Just in case, I have exported all my entries - you can save the files as XML or CSV (I did both!) - going for CSV is easier, since it automatically saves the files for you with the year and month reference.

Apparently, yesterday was Jane Austen's birthday, and to celebrate, lizziebelle linked to this site representing Pride & Prejudice as envisaged on Facebook....