Weapon of Maths Destruction

Well done to the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less which this week demolished a racist and scary video on Youtube, just with the power of maths. Yes, that's right children: you too can work out that the Muslim population of Belgium isn't 25% because it's actually around 6%, purely by using numbers, along with what we call 'thinking'.

The video, reportedly posted by a US Christian group, seeks to frighten us all to bejesus - literally - with what it calls the 'Islamicisation of Europe', ie those dark foreigners are breeding so uncontrollably that soon there'll be no nice white, blonde, God - as opposed to Allah-fearing - people left.

And you might have believed it, for about a minute, if not for those helpful maths geeks at More or Less - and another flaw they calmly and charmingly pointed out. None of the EU countries record the religion of newborns so no-one knows how many of them are Muslims. Oh, and trends measured over the last 100 years show that immigrant groups largely conform over time to the birth patterns of their host nations. In other words, it's all bollocks. Statistical bollocks, as well as ideological. Thank you, BBC: when the airwaves are full of ranting talk shows and 'home-made' news reports, we are going to miss you so much.