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Brain lock afflicts the best of us


The Gazette


Thursday, September 01, 2005








There is no cure for the common cold, or for that other common affliction of
mankind: brain lock. As most of us learn as we grow older, brain lock spares no
one. The most we can hope for is that when it takes hold between our own ears,
we do not suffer an embarrassment like the one that Universite de Montreal
professor Michel Picard has had to endure since the publication in a university
newspaper Monday of his study on airline noise and school performance.

Picard looked at data and arrived at the startling conclusion that the marks of
West Island school children have suffered a lot since the 1999 closing of
Mirabel Airport and transfer of flights to Dorval.

As it turns out, however, Picard had inadvertently taken a key set of numbers
from the wrong column of a table of figures.

"It was a stupid mistake," said Picard, whose study wasn't financed by any
interest group.

In an age when so many studies seem intended deliberately to mislead in support
of ideological views, it's almost refreshing to see a pure, innocent case of
brain lock. Give Picard credit for publicly thanking the Journal de Montreal
reporter who discovered the mistake, and who in doing so showed why
corroboration is so important in research.

C The Gazette (Montreal) 2005

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