bengoldacre - secondary blog

ben goldacre witters on and on and on about things that are too long to post on twitter and not clever enough to post on his main blog at www.badscience.net

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    Mark Lancaster MP and his terrifying drug scare: the UK imports 200kg of khat per person per week. Bullshit.

    According to Mark Lancaster, Conservative MP for Milton Keynes, we import 10 million tonnes of khat into the UK every week. That's 200kg of the drug for every man woman and child in the UK. Every week. Nobody thought to challenge him on this. You can read this in Hansard.

    http://bit.ly/A8hn2j

    200kg of the drug for everyone in the country every week sounds to me like it might be a drug war exaggeration, for a drug that most people haven't even heard of.

    via my friend Mike Jay.

    http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debate/?id=2012-01-11a.295.1

    • 12 January 2012
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    about 1 month ago joelphillips responded:
    joelphillips
    That would be 20 times the UK's annual coal imports.

    http://www.coalimp.org.uk/3.html

    about 1 month ago James Cowlishaw liked this post.
    about 1 month ago muscleguy responded:
    muscleguy
    What's 10million tons in double decker buses? We need more careful thought about units and quantities. Someone on CiF suggested piping water from the Russian Arctic to solve the drought in Niger with no regard for the distance or energy costs involved. Mark Lancaster duly noted.
    about 1 month ago maysonic (Twitter) responded:
    Image1326256320_normal
    Makes me ashamed to share a surname with the bloke.

    Mayson Lancaster

    about 1 month ago captain_flymo (Twitter) responded:
    288627_10150334515825166_667455165_9963168_1335381_o_normal
    I sincerely hope joelphillips is making some sort of sarcastic/ironic point because otherwise your maths are somewhat out, sir, give that 10m tonnes is something under 40% of the UK 2010 coal imports according to the provided link.
    about 1 month ago GaspardWinckler (Twitter) responded:
    8a5bc958-1051-4171-a4f5-e12f35c6dacd_normal
    Captain_flymo, that coal site says that "The UK consumed 51.5 million tonnes of coal in 2010, including 41.9 million tonnes in power stations. Coal imports to the UK were 26.5 million tonnes [...]" That's total coal imports for the whole of 2010; Mark Lancaster is suggesting that Britain, as a nation, gets through that weight of khat roughly every eighteen days.
    about 1 month ago TiggerTherese (Twitter) responded:
    Twitterprofilephoto_normal
    Lol - anyone who's ever seen a carrier bag full of khat appear from under the counter at a Somalian internet cafe would laugh even more.

    Khat is a dried plant - all leaves and stems. It's not even crushed up like dried herbs. 10 mn tonnes would fill an enormous volume.

    Does the UK have enough ships etc visiting each week to bring that volume of stuff in? You know - ignoring all the TVs and cars and French cheese and...

    about 1 month ago joelphillips responded:
    joelphillips
    I guess that "20 times the rate of UK's coal imports" would have been more accurate.
    about 1 month ago ironpenguin responded:
    ironpenguin
    Like a good skeptic, I checked out the Hansard link to read the original remarks in their context. The quote from Mark Lancaster now reads "10 tonnes", as does the related post on his website. However the version of his website in Google's cache (http://tinyurl.com/7m62pqs) says "10 million tonnes". Apparently, MPs can request changes to Hansard to correct any stupid mistakes they may have made, which is just slightly too Ministry of Truth for my liking...

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    I like stats. I'm a doctor. I write about dodgy scientific claims in my spare time.

    This isn't my main blog. Find me here:

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  • About Ben Goldacre

    I like stats. I'm a doctor. I write about dodgy scientific claims in my spare time.

    This isn't my main blog. Find me here:

    Blog:
    www.badscience.net/

    Book:
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/000728487X/?tag=bs0b-21

    Tweet:
    www.twitter.com/bengoldacre

    TED talk:
    http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.html

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