I hate to bang on at The Times every other week with the general demeanour of a Colin Farrell stalker, but they need to learn. After all, they are capable of producing informative and accurate pieces, like this week’s article which reported that "The Arctic will be ice-free in summer within 20 years, research says". A reputable Cambridge professor who was present during the collection of data gave informative but sensible quotes and simple numbers to justify clear conclusions: "They drilled 1,500 holes and found that the average thickness of ice floes was 1.8m (5.9 ft). This was too thin to have survived the previous year’s summer melting."

In the same week, they included a story headlined "Placebo effect starts in the spine – not just the mind", about a part of the brain which releases endorphins without treatment in fifteen volunteers. It is not clear from the article how they have reached their conclusion, and they randomly quote questionable sources to back up the story: "The latest studies on antidepressants suggest that at least 75 percent of the benefit comes from the placebo effect." There is no reference to these "latest studies". Perhaps they mean the controversial study by psychologist Irving Kirsch which a Columbia University psychiatrist called "unrepresentative and inconsistent with a misleading effect size". If you are going to quote numbers, quote all of them. And their source.

Also: "Science: If you want to stay slim and fit, choose your friends carefully". What’s more, "happiness seems more contagious than despondency: it has a 9 per cent chance of being passed on, compared with 7 per cent for unhappiness." And the "risk of becoming obese rose by a fifth if a friend of a friend became obese." How does this emotional contagion work? Why are these unconvincing statistics used? Maybe because without them, the article is a continuous ramble of theories with no source about what it mysteriously alludes to as ‘fat people that hang out with other fat people.’