Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet - Music industry figures

Thanks to Anthony T for pointing me in the direction of today's Ben Goldacre Bad Science column, which explores this week's claims that "researchers found more than a million people using a download site in ONE day and estimated that in a year they would use £120bn worth of material."

The whole thing is worth reading, but as a taste, Goldacre follows the trail to find out where the claims for "losses" come from:

What is the origin of this conservative figure? I hunted down the full Ciber documents, found the references section, and followed the web link, which led to a 2004 press release from a private legal firm called Rouse who specialise in intellectual property law. This press release was not about the £10bn figure. It was, in fact, a one-page document, which simply welcomed the government setting up an intellectual property theft strategy. In a short section headed "background", among five other points, it says: "Rights owners have estimated that last year alone counterfeiting and piracy cost the UK economy £10bn and 4,000 jobs." An industry estimate, as an aside, in a press release. Genius.

I would never do that to you, I would never drive that fast

Hold the front page. No, hold several inner pages, too. A team of "scientists" have done some sciencing and discovered that listening to faster music might make you drive faster.

The scientists are based at Ben Gurion University - we mention that because they deserve to hang their heads in shame - and their findings are being pushed by a company which does something to do, vaguely, with cars:

A team of scientists at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel carried out the study exploring the effect of music tempo on driving. They found that music tempo consistently affected both driving speed and the driver's perceived speed estimates: as the tempo of background music increased, so too did the driving speed and the driver's speed estimate. The tempo of background music also consistently affected the frequency of traffic violations; disregarded red traffic-lights, road crossings and collisions were most frequent with fast-paced music.

But hang about... if you're driving faster, that means you're going to be less in control of your car, stopping distances will be longer, and so on, which means that it's the speed which makes you more likely to screw up and make mistakes. Not the music.

Although if you're playing George Sampson's Headz Up, you might be tempted to spin your car on its roof.

The car-related business then chips in with some findings of its own:

[They] also ran a recent consumer survey which revealed that 73% of respondents admitted to having speeded in the past and of those over 70% revealed that they listened to loud rock and fast dance music.

So... most people have, at some point in the past, driven faster than the speed limit; and most people listen to rock or dance music.

I haven't done the survey, but I very much suspect that if you did, you'd find at least two thirds of people in the UK have worn trousers. And I bet at least two thirds of them have eaten pizza. Therefore, eating pizza makes you wear trousers. (If Pizza Hut and Next want to send me an email talking money, I'll even do them a press release.)

Do they have another expert on hand to try and explain these surprises?

Eve Oldfield, Cognitive Neuroscience specialist said: "The study results imply that music tempo increases driving risks by competing for attentional space in the brain; the driver is distracted and driving capacity reduced with the increase in the number of temporal events which must be processed and require larger memory storage."

If you Google Eve Oldfield, the first response is the press release with the story in it; you then get a Facebook public listing which lists that Eve Oldfield as a fan of Ben Goldacre. That would be the Ben Goldacre who spends much of his time pointing out flaws in this sort of non-science. That could just be a wacky coincidence.

But why should rock music be the only music that does that? Wouldn't a convoluted lo-fi romance song also command your attention? How about if you liked singing along with quiet-is-the-new-loud stuff? Wouldn't that demand more of your attention than merely flinging in a Top Gear compilation CD?

In short: Hasn't Ben Gurion University just wasted a bit of its money and time and tarnished its reputation?

[Thanks to James P for the tip]

Global Radio: Jeni Barnett defends her position

Having blogged yesterday about Global Radio's heavy handed attempts to smother Bad Science (having been quite happy to propagate bad science, without the capital letters).

In the interests of balance, Jeni Barnett has posted a blog entry defending her original broadcast. Or attempting to:

I am not a scientist, I would not claim to be a scientist. When tested on the contents of the MMR vaccine I told the truth. I did not have the facts to hand. Was I ill informed? Yes. As a responsible broadcaster I should have been better prepared as a parent, however, I can fight my corner. I don't know everything that goes into cigarettes but I do know they are harmful.

So... let's just work through that thought. Jeni is admitting that she didn't know what she was talking about; she admits that she was being "irresponsible" as the presenter of the programme for holding forth on a subject about which she didn't have any of the facts, but somehow justifies this because she has a child.

And then she compounds the problems by suggesting trying to create a fallacy: "I don't know what goes into cigarettes, but I know they're bad."

Eh? But surely you know that cigarettes contain carcinogens, which is why they cause cancer. You presumably know there's evidence, lots and lots of it, which links cigarettes to lung cancer. If you don't know about that evidence, you probably shouldn't be broadcasting on radio; you probably should be thinking about doing some basic GCSEs.

But even if that level of ignorance was defensible, saying "I know cigarettes are bad, I don't know how" doesn't justify broadcasting dangerous rubbish about MMR. Because MMR doesn't cause autism, so implying that it doesn't matter you don't understand the science of MMR, it's enough to know it does harm is doubly foolish - it's foolish because it simply isn't good enough to take such a weak approach to a difficult subject; it's foolish because it simply isn't true to claim that there's a danger in the triple jab. And you'd know that if you'd researched the subject. And as you admit, you hadn't.

The real question is why Global are sending legal threats to Ben Goldacre when, really, they should be calling in their presenter and asking why she thinks having procreated is some sort of excuse for taking a biased and wrong position on a programme where she should have been acting as a balanced moderator.

Jeni wails:

I would like some of my critics to try and run a three hour programme.

Eh? You can't call someone for turning up to do a show, admitting they didn't have any facts on the subject they were talking about, and still blasting out fallacious science if you haven't presented a three-hour radio programme. What's that even mean, Jeni? "It's enough having to remember to play the commercials and not crash the news - you can't expect me to know what I'm talking about."

I am interested in the debate not a witch hunt.

A debate - although not one where you're bothered to find out what you're talking about before starting it.

Should anybody from BAD SCIENCE read this I urge you to continue the debate, and if it gets too heated there is always the option of turning me off.

Well, yes, Jeni - except the problem is, anyone can turn you off. What they can't turn off is the rising level of measles cases that are being generated by ignorant commentators like you frightening parents into not getting their children inoculated. And if you're going to justify doing that, it's probably in all our interests to have your show switched off permanently. On the supply side.

Global Radio menaces Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre - scourge of bad scientists worldwide - wrote a short feature condemning LBC presenter Jeni Barnett's ignorant and dangerous spouting on vaccinations. In the interests of fairness, he included a long clip of the broadcast about which he was complaining.

For his trouble, he's been hit with legal threats from Global Radio. Goldacre generously assumes the company is merely trying to protect its revenue (unbelievably, you can buy old editions of the Barnett programme for four pounds a pop). It's more likely that LBC are embarrassed at the idea of someone pointing out that they give a platform for biased nonsense and want to shut down any discussion of the programmes that they are unable to control.

Goldacre is appealing for help from anyone who knows a bit of media law.