Radio 4 more or less - Cass

Another here pleased to see Tim Harford looking at this at last.

As an aside I haven't heard the Economist tackling this yet and that's probably the only outlet I'd trust as much. Might be wrong but it hasn't hit their daily podcast. I'm hoping they might be digesting it a bit first to tie in with the international picture. If they failed to follow it up I'd be surprised.

There’s always been two versions of MoL - a 30 minute version that appears in a series on R4 several times a year, and an ongoing 9 minute version that’s on the World Service every week.

I’d absolutely trust Tim Harford. They’ve dealt with some quite thorny topics before so I don’t see that they’d suddenly throw statistical methodology to the wind on this one. They know it would mean they were never trusted again, because a lot of people turn to MoL to find out what’s really going on behind the headlines.

It's always an excellent programme. So delighted they've finally covered a trans issue. They've been silent for too long.

It was #OperationLetThemSpeak again. There'd be an accurate scientific analysis / commentary on what had happened to children followed by an adult transwoman talking about themselves and their demands. Presumably the BBC's idea of balance but it rather backfired

Thanks NoBinturongsHereMate and AnnaMagnani

in which case, I guess the TRAs complaining haven't found anything in them to even remotely back up their assertions.

Gosh that’s a shock BBC news are reporting this because they’ve been pretty dreadful and I’d say complicit in spreading this false information. Every single news item on the day Cass was released had a TRA on dissing the report.

She doesn't need to publish the studies, they will all be already published.

The systematic reviews used to inform the report are also all published and list all the studies considered with a lot of information about the process and assessment used.

Perhaps she needs to publish those studies

I've not checked all the Cass ones, but usually an evidence review looks only at published studies. No need for Cass to publish them again.

radio 4 Media Show. Ignore headline, Cass took up a lot of the show.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001y86y?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I like how Dr. Cass being asked onto political/news programmes to discuss a major report which is major news has been interpreted as her "crying" and "raking in right wing cash".

It was covered in a very balanced way on the Media Show on BBC R4 on Thursday afternoon.

Closed belief system, indeed.

I love how they consider the BBC "transphobic"

I completely agree with the thrust of this, but 98% of studies were not thrown out!

It's all they have; it's all they've ever had, and people are finally starting to fully understand that.

I'm astounded at MPs spreading this misinformation. As an MP I do think you need to be held accountable if doing this.

It's almost Trump-esque, isn't it? A post truth world indeed

Perhaps it's not enough for her to assert, publicly, what the actual facts are. These nasty bastards don't give a flying fuck about credentials and reputation. If they can fuck it up, they will.

Perhaps she needs to publish those studies. And let everyone have a crack at critiquing them in public.

Maybe it's full of 'my mate said this, and he should know' anecdotes. Who knows?

But at least, that way, TRAs can fight out amongst themselves, while the grown-ups clear up their mess.

There was an early, lame attempt to spread the same misinformation here. It was shot down in flames. Mumsnet isn't Twitter or Reddit.

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/5049818-to-nominate-the-principle-authors-of-the-cass-review-for-this

Tim Hartford who presents More Or Less, I’d trust with my statistical life. He also works for the FT and does an amazing podcast called Cautionary Tales - we can trust this show I’m sure

Want to know the trans response?

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1c8p0x0/bbc_radio_4_more_or_less_behind_the_stats_98_is/

The same BBC that hasn’t been covering the medical scandal of transing kids and young people whilst pushing gender ideology and extremely misogynistic drag content across its channels?

Hmmm. I simply don’t trust them on anything these days. I find it hard to believe there’s no agenda at play tbh.

Nobody sat the Twitter comms person down and said 'Right, if you were a TRA, how would you read this press release?'

Probably because they're not paying the cleaner enough... What if he was a method actor?

I kind of feel sorry for the BMJ who are used to only being read by a scientific/medical audience.

In any systematic review vast amounts of studies are thrown out. And a normal BMJ audience would read 98% of studies thrown out as either it being hard to do qualitity studies in this area or no-one is actually trying, or both.

Nobody sat the Twitter comms person down and said 'Right, if you were a TRA, how would you read this press release?'

It's a short but good.
Tracks the '98% of studies ignored' rumour to the day before Cass was released, on Twitter, based on a BMJ headline. Misinterpretation and jumping to conclusions.