First of all, this is not an article about red meat. Eat what you want. As much as you want. My body’s a temple, which is why I adopt the ‘almost vegan’ attitude to life and food. With the ‘almost’ giving me a teensy weensy bit of ‘latitude’ over my diet. So I basically eat completely and totally vegan. But ‘supplement’ it (sounds vaguely medical that way) with small amounts of ‘calcium’ (milk, cheese), proteins (meat, fish, eggs) and ‘nice food’, to take away the taste left by all those vegetables. And if a cow or a fish or even, heaven forfend, a pig!!!!!, should die in the provision of my plate; so much the better. There’s plenty more out there.

This is about statistics. A long-term hobby-horse of mine. Adhering, as I do, to my own maxim: ‘all statistics are total bollocks’. And people accuse ME of cynicism. ‘Oh, but it’s ‘statistically shown’ that 47% of red-headed females are married to men called either James, Hector or Mohammed’. 27% of left-handed men can’t watch more than 6 minutes of women’s football with out screaming, whereas its 7.2 minutes for right-handers. This pill is statistically shown to make you live for at least three years after you’d wished you’d died.

All rubbish. Obviously. Yet we believe. If its in the paper and it has enough PhDs’ names attached to it, the numbers carry sufficient weight to have us rushing to the shops to buy flax seed or courgettes, or rushing to the bin with all the meat from the freezer.

97% of statisticians won’t work for nothing. So when you see ‘a study has shown…’ the first thing to do is look who sponsored the study. Who paid for it. Numbers don’t just ‘appear’ as if by magic when you hold a calculator to a raw steak. You have to ask questions. Or test for certain things. So, logically, there are other questions that you’re not asking; other tests that you’re not doing. There’s always a ‘bias’. And that is driven by what you’re looking to ‘prove’. ‘Beyond mere chance’.

Which accounts for red wine being the best thing you can drink to live longer, one day. And three days later, that same bottle of wine (assuming you didn’t drink it) will KILL YOU STONE DEAD!!!!. One study was funded by the red wine marketing board, the other by the society for those who fucking hate red wine.

Now it’s in The Times. So it must be true. 82% of articles are true.

Happy cynical Thursday

A xxxx