Ben Goldacre on the Daily Mail
"[T]he Daily Mail does have an ongoing ontological program to divide all inanimate objects into ones that will either cause or cure cancer."
- Ben Goldacre, writing in the Guardian
This week's discourse in Bad Science takes on the Tory's latest effort to discredit the Labour government by analyzing the handwriting of Gordon Brown. Goldacre poses the question "Is the political right, contrary to popular speculation about muesli-eating Guardian-readers, the natural home of quackery?" In favor of the theory, he points out that believing in the health claims of nutriceuticals is inherently right-wing. Why? Because the logical corollary is that unhealthiness is the victim's own fault, for eating junk food (as opposed to the more likely culprit, namely the poverty caused by systematic state neglect.) And he reminds us of the work of social theorist Theodore Adorno, who linked astrology and fascism. The political right, according to Adorno, thrives with "simple, clear, authoritative narratives, rigid systems, patterns, and structures that make sense of the world."
And that's where the Daily Mail steps in.
You can read the entire piece here.