Canada’s Globe & Mail newspaper has a daily feature on the back called “Social Studies”, which is a series of entertaining or interesting tidbits of information. This one caught my eye, from last Monday:
Er…I haven’t seen the article quoted here, but doesn’t this seem terribly unlikely? God knows, I often wonder about the effects of food additives, but fourteen percent??? That’s a suspiciously large jump considering that students only eat one out of three of the meals of the day in the school cafeteria. I’m guessing this is just junk science.
[Actually, looking at the Social Studies columns it does seem as if dubious science makes up a lot of its little sound-bites. For instance, the Thursday paper has a paragraph on Italian researcher who proved that “more ‘grey matter’ is required to appreciate classical music than pop.” One wonders why such seemingly pointless research is being done; & the crassness of the comparison is breathtaking–as if “pop music” & “classical music” were at all uniform fields. – Depressing to think such little “scientific” soundbites are being given currency by a national newspaper.]