Dear Puritans:

One of my favourite sayings (and it is one that Ken and I originated) is that ‘Statistics are a wonderful servant and an appalling master.’ It appears on page 125 of The Puritan Gift. One major problem with our world today is that it worships statistics as a method of control. If one can judge by a letter from a Mr Keith Isaacson in yesterday’s Financial Times, this approach is now threatening the lives of Scottish children. It seems that Scottish dentists are not rewarded for fitting orthodontic braces to children unless they undertake an X-ray — a rule which does not apply in neighbouring England. Consequently Scottish children are subjected to a large amount of unnecessary radiation, increasing the risk of cancer in later life for those who live north of the Border.