All a matter of tone

Mischievous. Specious. Inadequately addresses the debate. Misrepresents Flawed by superficial interpretation. A disturbing tendency to equate conjecture with evidence. Incomprehensible. Where might these words and phrases come from? Could it be the Artful Dodger's school report? The judgment of the Labour party on the Tory party conference?

They come from the letters columns of the BMJ (p 1066) in response to the paper that suggested that health education on sunlight might be failing because it was presenting the evidence in an unbalanced way (10 July, p 114). The response is described by the criticised …