Writing worth reading

Christopher Snowdon, author of Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking, available from his website HERE, has written an excellent article for the online magazine Spiked.

Snowdon takes issue with Martin Dockrell, ASH's policy and campaigns manager, who recently launched what Snowdon calls as an "extraordinary attack on the journalist and broadcaster Michael Blastland". Writing online, Dockrell described Blastland as a "conspiracy theorist" and a "dissident".

Blastland’s crime was to criticise a study that claimed that the incidence of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) fell by 17 per cent after Scotland’s public smoking ban came into force in 2006. The study then applied a logical fallacy: since the reduction followed the ban, it must have been caused by the ban. Blastland covered the story for the BBC in November 2007, two months after the findings were reported by the international media following a presentation at a tobacco control conference.

Snowdon also has a pop at members of the scientific community who try to stifle debate:

Scientific debate should not be reduced to ad hominem attacks. Good scientists are happy to have their theories scrutinised, even when they believe their opponents to be utterly misguided. Good scientists do not announce their findings to the press and then refuse to answer questions. Good scientists do not refuse to release their raw data. Good scientists do not claim that a scientific debate is over before it has been allowed to begin. Above all, good scientists do not slander their critics with barely concealed accusations of madness, corruption or worse.

Full article HERE.

Comments

[jon]

Dockrell seems to have concentrated on discrediting Blastland, although Andrew Dilnot is the first named author of Junk Statistics of 2007 which appeared in the Times. Dilnot's Wikipedia page perhaps gives a clue as to why Dockrell concentrated on Blastland.

"Andrew William Dilnot CBE (born 19 June 1960), economist and broadcaster, has been Principal of St Hugh's College, Oxford since October 2002. He was for several years the presenter of BBC Radio 4's series on numbers, More or Less (his successor is Tim Harford) and of documentaries for British television.

Dilnot was Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies from 1991 to 2002. As well as teaching at Oxford, he has also taught at University College London, the London School of Economics and overseas. He was awarded a CBE in 2000 for services to economics and economic policy.

Dilnot became a Pro Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University in 2005."