Tom Whipple

Thank you!

Morning!

There is a good chance that this will be the most important economic fact in all of our lives.

I disagree on the headline, I think it's good and reasonable (I don't write them) and we need to be able to presume people read the article. But I'm happy to respect your view. Maybe try us again, you could just possibly be surprised!

Anyway, have a good night.

It would be different if *anyone*was using this to claim that paracetamol caused autism. They aren't, that I can find. But even writing everything for that - thinking at every stage, "can this be willfully misunderstood" - would be a recipe for madness that would debase us all.

I want to keep writing these articles, because the world is a complex and uncertain place. But every time this happens it becomes harder.

The only reason anyone is interpreting this headline this way is because somoene deliberately screenshotted it, without context, and told people to be outraged. It is an article attempting to explain why it can be correct to say that paracetamol correlates with autism, but doesn't cause it.

Honestly though - this ridiculous performative outrage - either we notice it, and change, and everything gets stupider. Or we don't, and you get this kind of stupidity. The only people interpreting it this way are people who want to signal their superiority. It kills nuance and actual cleverness.

The Times readership consists, by definition, of people who read its articles. In this case one about statistical confounding.

And it certainly, emphatically, doesn't write to be screenshotted.

No they didn't. The Times isn't interested in clicks, it's a subscriber paper. It writes for people to read it.

So you amplified a headline without the context that would have explained it, that *you* felt was a public health concern on its own, in order to combat a public health concern. I dunno, that's a bit weird.

In all honesty, yes. Maybe we are naive. We write for people to read us. I write 300-odd articles a year. Thinking every time, "if someone maliciously and deliberately removed context on this, how would it look" would drive us mad and be futile. Taking notice of this makes the world stupider

Honestly, I haven't seen them doing that. Maybe they have? But I've only seen the reverse.

Is there something you disagree with in the analysis?

IT IS AN ARTICLE ABOUT STATISTICAL CONFOUNDING. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT, MAYBE DON'T COMMENT ON IT. IF YOU THINK THE (PERFECTLY REASONABLE) HEADLINE MIGHT BE A PROBLEM, DON'T TWEET IT SHORN OF CONTEXT AND THEREBY MAKE IT A PROBLEM.

It's amazing this stuff. Presumably the people who screenshot know that they are wilfully misleading people, but they do it anyway for lovely clout.

The world is indeed complex, and the fact that (probably) statistical confounding can produce spurious correlations is also worthy of attention.

Honestly, it's a perfectly reasonable headline about an article that explains the concept of statistical confounding and why it can lead to correlations that aren't causations.

If people are screenshotting it and implying otherwise than it's them who are wilfully endangering public health....

Thank you!

(I actually think I misunderstood you - I thought you meant pay by article. Pay by edition is a bit different)

Yeah noted - although, that is actually still possible! We have dead tree versions!

Good to see you attempting belatedly to undo the damage you do to public health through prioritising performative outrage over actual intelligence. Well done champ!

The thing about 1 shot payment is it is always rejected because the idea is it would hollow out the brand. People would pay overwhlemingly for columnists (who would then get a substack). The hard collecting-facts bit wouldn't get the funding, despite being valued - and can in any case be ripped off

But if you care about public health, and that's obviously what you care about, you'd make the change now, right? Otherwise you're endangering public health. That's disgraceful behaviour.

I look forward to seeing your urgent clarifying tweet, explaining that your initial tweet should not imply that a major newspaper believes there is a causative link between paracetamol and autism. Because even with your strong (but non-factual) refutation, believing otherwise might lend it credence.

No, it deliberately wasn't. It was framed to set up the article, which we expected people to read. Even read literally it works, because the data is indeed confusing.

Your timeline could have still reached plenty of people. If you care at all about public health you should send a follow up.

It didn't, because it's you playing the parlour game, with your sweet retweets and likes. Ironically, while the headline had no intention of misleading, you *did* damage public health by seeking attention through misrepresentation of a serious matter. Shameful stuff when you think about it...

If you remotely cared about public health, rather than clout, believed what you now claim, and had actually read it (incredibly you're perfectly happy to concede you hadn't! What a time to be alive!), your tweet would have said, "This headline is irresponsible and misrepresents the article".

We differ on what causes public health consequences. I think there's quite good evidence that treating people like morons is bad.

Although judging by your willingness to stand by a self-righteous position you talked yourself erroneously into through a misunderstanding, maybe that's wrong!

If the former exists it can lead to the latter. For that reason, it might be useful to explain it.

Of course, if you don't read an article, are really fucking rude, and screenshot a headline out of context while amplify the impression it says the opposite, that's another way to create confounding.