Have done! (the experts, not the clay).

They have quite the OOO

Thank you!

Morning!

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.