Anisotropy as a function of scale, measured from the distribution of angular pairwise distances, for the DESI DR1 data, the FLAMINGO simulation data, and the S2 data in its fiducial coordinates. The anisotropy in the FLAMINGO galaxy catalogs that include redshift-space distortions matches that of the DESI data, when compared in the correct coordinates. The absence of redshift-space distortions (in the real-space galaxy catalogs), or the absence of both redshift-space distortions and bias (in the particle data) reduces the anisotropy in the simulation. By contrast, the S2 data show spuriously high anisotropy.