Political ideas need proper testing

I don’t recall it myself, but like most babies born in 1973, I apparently slept face down in my cot. This was the standard advice, made famous by Benjamin Spock in 1948. We now know that for many unlucky families, this well-meaning advice was fatal. According to research published in 2005, putting babies to sleep on their fronts has led to about 60,000 cot deaths.

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Tim Harford’s blog

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Tim, also known as the Undercover Economist, writes about the economics of everyday life.

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