Could a brain parasite found in cats help soccer teams win at the World Cup?
slate.com
slate.com
Finally, it's possible—likely, even—that the correlation between Toxo infection and World Cup success is a coincidence, or that it reflects some other common trait among successful soccer nations. Maybe it helps to have raw meat in your diet, and Toxo is just a side effect?
Neither HN nor Slate are peer-reviewed journals. Speculation on odd correlations is not meant to be conclusory, but to spur thought on mechanisms, alternative explanations, and possible investigations.
What if this speculation prompts a study of soccer players, and finds that compared to their countrymen and controlling for other observable factors, pro players are more likely to show toxo infection?
To me, the effects of Toxoplasmosis on cognition and behavior, together with the wildly different national infection rates, are fascinating. The correlations with World Cup results may wind up to be meaningless, but merely highlighting the strangeness of the possibility raises awareness of this parasite, which I view as a positive thing.
Almost all correlations are complete crap. 99.9% of people who read Slate have neither the expertise nor the resources needed to spur investigations. Most of their readers are people who are ignorant of science and who will get falsely believe that articles like this constitute real science; they'll totally gloss over the tiny proviso at the end about correlation not being causation and the tiny bit about how Taxo actually harms reaction time. For most readers, this article will actively miseducate them. How can making your readership dumber possibly be a good thing? Don't we have enough stupidity in our world already?
What if this speculation prompts a study of soccer players, and finds that compared to their countrymen and controlling for other observable factors, pro players are more likely to show toxo infection?
What if I spontaneously turn into a dragon that lays golden eggs? What then?
If you can find a few cases where real research that wouldn't have otherwise happened resulted from Slate publishing some crappy anti-science article like this that did nothing but note some weird correlation and speculate about it, then I'll concede that you have a point. That should be easy, right?
highlighting the strangeness of the possibility raises awareness of this parasite, which I view as a positive thing.
I don't. Taxo infection is interesting in a "wow, that's cool" sort of way, but it should not be a priority for medical research or public health interventions. We actually know quite a bit about how to improve public health globally and combating Taxo infections is not how you do it. Spending public health funds or devoting public awareness campaigns to Taxo infections is a huge waste: it would mean sacrificing lives for our own amusement.
Public health is mostly about boring staid dull things, not cool neat awesome things.
Most interesting thing in the article, there is a parasite which reproduces in cat's stomach, and to be able to get there changes the behavior of mice to be less careful of cats.
Everything else is bullshit.