Daily Mail Determines Reality

[BPSDB]The Daily Mail, it would appear, has taken on itself the right to decide not only what is taught in school science lessons but also the nature of reality.

At first sight this is just one more item in the Mail’s mule-headed campaign against the MMR vaccine. This would be bad enough since Wakefield’s claims were never credible and to continue the campaign is to endanger public health but the concuding paragraph shows that the situation is far worse.

The question concerned (question 5 of the this paper. The mark scheme is here) asks the examinee to evaluate the evidence for the MMR-autism link. Marks are awarded for identifying the flaws in Wakefield’s research, in particular the small sample size (12), conclusions based on hearsay from parents (and even then only 8 linked autism to MMR) and the lack of a control group. This rewards the ability to evaluate evidence – something needed in a world full of spurious media claims and scares – but because the evidence does not support the Mail’s MMR hoax, it is deemed to be ‘brainwashing’.

I had to get the above here because, worse yet, AQA seem to have removed the paper from their website and allegedly ‘apologised’ for any ‘misunderstanding’. I emailed the AQA to ask for clarification but have heard nothing back. Maybe they don’t reply to comedy email addresses. Consequently we are left with no explanation as to why they removed a perfectly good question because it did not suit the Daily Mail’s agenda.

Why have the Daily Mail been granted the powers to dictate what is taught and stop students being given the skills to see through tabloid scare campaigns? I can see why the Mail want this but why have AQA cravenly gone along with it? What next? Banning “The Human Journey” from the BBC because the Mail’s more retarded readership do not like the notion that they are descended from black Africans?

Tags: Beezy Marsh, Daily Mail, health scares, MMR