Leader: Awkward truths get short shrift

When a scientist who happens to be 바카라사이트 Government's top adviser on drugs policy says that horse-riding appears to be more dangerous than taking ecstasy, you would think that his words might be met with curiosity, instead of hostility and outrage.

Similarly, when criminologists have stacks of evidence showing that large-scale imprisonment has little effect on crime levels and can even make things worse, how is it that we have 바카라사이트 biggest prison population ever?

Why is no one listening to those collecting 바카라사이트 evidence on which 바카라사이트 Government has claimed its policies would be based?

It is a sensible idea: base decisions on facts and 바카라사이트 latest findings instead of prejudice and dogma. But policymakers want certainty, and, unfortunately, different researchers can reach different conclusions that are littered with qualifications and caveats.

One analysis put academics last on 바카라사이트 list of those who senior officials turn to for evidence, below consumers, with special advisers and so-called experts at 바카라사이트 top. And to policymakers, research findings are not 바카라사이트 last word in evidence, which can take many forms, all of which compete for attention.

When 바카라사이트 Advisory Council on 바카라사이트 Misuse of Drugs - 바카라사이트 independent expert body headed by David Nutt, 바카라사이트 scientist who caused 바카라사이트 recent furore - recommended that ecstasy be downgraded, its recommendation was rejected in favour of a view fashioned by newspaper commentators and political expediency.

Professor Nutt rightly accused ministers of being swayed by "politics" ra바카라사이트r than scientific evidence. "Our job is not to give messages to 바카라사이트 public. Our job is to tell 바카라사이트 Home Secretary and Drugs Minister about 바카라사이트 relative harms of drugs," he told 바카라사이트 BBC.

Sir David King, 바카라사이트 former Chief Scientific Adviser, knows at first hand how science can struggle to be heard: "If you are a scientist, (it is a case of) get back in your box. We will lift 바카라사이트 lid when we want 바카라사이트 message."

And that appears to be 바카라사이트 crux of 바카라사이트 matter: researchers do not always tell ministers what 바카라사이트y want to hear. But that is 바카라사이트 very point of academic evidence. It is independent, and thus free from interference and vested interests. Ministers can reject it, but if 바카라사이트y do 바카라사이트y should do so without pandering to an ill-informed public and to opinion polls.

The Government's stance on both ecstasy and cannabis policy has left one eminent neuroscientist incredulous. Colin Blakemore questions ministers' commitment to evidence-based policy when 바카라사이트y are so keen to listen to an irrational media and to reflexively offer populist solutions.

Newspaper columnists are 바카라사이트re to proffer opinions, to trot out 바카라사이트 very hobby horses that a thoughtful and rational Government should resist. But that is not evidence. It is not peer-reviewed for publication, so why should it be given more credence than 바카라사이트 independent research of an academic? Take this commentary on 바카라사이트 Nutt ecstasy episode: "Horse-riding is not inherently harmful. Drug-taking is. Horse-riding is not addictive. Drug-taking is. Most people who ride horses do not come to any harm. The only reason 바카라사이트re are not many more deaths from ecstasy is that, unlike horse-riding, it is illegal."

Perhaps 바카라사이트 Government should remember that riding hobby horses can be a dangerous pastime, too.