I can’t name a friend in the discipline of philosophy who hasn’t taught at least one session using an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation. There are books – I checked – about the ethics of Star Trek.

Kids are not the big stars on Star Trek. They are as rare as plants on the deck of the various starships. And in fact they are often portrayed as a nuisance – Jean Luc Picard cannot wait to be rid of Dr. Crusher’s young and far-too-inquisitive son Wesley, who remains the most reviled member of the Star Trek cast to this day.

But had Sean Philpott not pointed it out to me, I would never have believed that Star Trek is so highly correlated with pedophilia.

The LA Times recently ran a story about the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit, which contained a mind-boggling statistic: of the more than 100 offenders the unit has arrested over the last four years, “all but one” has been “a hard-core Trekkie.” Blogger Ernest Miller thought this claim was improbable. “I could go to a science fiction convention,” he explained “and be less likely to find that 99+ percent of the attendees were hard-core Trekkies.” While there may be quibbling about the exact numbers, the Toronto detectives claim that the connection is undeniable.”