Product Description

How do we know if a treatment works, or if something causes cancer? Can the claims of homeopaths ever be as true – or as interesting as the improbable research into the placebo effect? Who created the MMR hoax? Do journalists understand science? Why do we seek scientific explanations for social, personal and political problems? Are alternative therapists and the pharmaceutical companies really so different, or do they just use the same old tricks to sell different types of pill? We are obsessed with our health. And yet – from the media’s ‘world-expert microbiologist’ with a mail-order PhD in his garden shed laboratory, via multiple health scares and miracle cures, to the million pound trial that Durham Council now denies ever existed – we are constantly bombarded with inaccurate, contradictory and sometimes even misleading information. Until now. Ben Goldacre masterfully dismantles the dodgy science behind some of the great drug trials, court cases and missed opportunities of our time, but he also goes further: out of the bulls---, he shows us the fascinating story of how we know what we know, and gives us the tools to uncover bad science for ourselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
'The most important book you'll read this year, and quite possibly the funniest.' Charlie Brooker 'Bad Science inroduces the basic scientific principles to help everyone to become an effective bullshit detector.' Sir Iain Chalmers, Founder of the Cochrane Library

About the Author
Ben Goldacre is a writer, broadcaster and medical doctor from the UK who is best known for his "Bad Science" column in the Guardian newspaper, examining the claims of scaremongering journalists, quack health products, pseudoscientific cosmetics adverts, and evil multinational pharmaceutical corporations, as well as wider themes such as the medicalisation of everyday life and the psychology of irrational beliefs. He has a background in medicine and academia, trained in Oxford and London, works full time for the NHS, appears regularly on radio and TV, and has written for publications as diverse as Time Out, the British Medical Journal, New Statesman and The Lancet, as well as writing and presenting "The Rise Of The Lifestyle Nutritionists" and "The Power of Placebo" in 2008 on BBC Radio 4

Customer Reviews

Wonderful - this is what everyone is getting for Christmas this year!
A great book about medicine, and to a lesser extent science. Lots of stuff about statistics and evidence-based medicine, clearly explained. Goldacre is just brilliant - witty, charming, sensible. Buy this, read it, give it to your friends who take homeopathic remedies for non-existent conditions. Give it your friends who work for drug companies too. Above all, give it to anyone who works in the media, in the hope that they might acquire a modicum of scientific literacy.

Thoroughly excellent
A thoroughly excellent book from a practising doctor and medical researcher, who is also one of the few science journalists to actually understand scientific method. He is nearly a lone voice in the media, exposing the astonishing journey of 'health news' from the pages of academic journals to the tabloids and broadsheets, without passing through a critical brain in between. Thus, on a daily basis, the papers produce "X CAUSES/CURES CANCER" stories, based on very shaky understanding of experiments done in a petri dish. Whilst these stories may give false hope or fear to thousands of people, which is bad enough, in the case of MMR, they actually caused harm. He also explains how and why science fails to explain itself clearly and loudly in the face of emotionally charged 'my son has autism due to MMR' stories.

Goldacre also lays bare the facts about such 'complementary' therapies such as Homeopathy and Nutritionism, which when stripped of the accolades given them in the media, are revealed to be little more than eccentric ideas which somehow have gained unquestioning credence in the popular mind, and even, perversely, created a deep-rooted suspicion of maninstream medicine which is now taken at face value.

I thoroughly recommend this book, especially for journalists, but it is also essential reading for scientists, doctors and anyone who finds their mouth flapping when trying to put their friends / family straight on why spending 100 quid on dipping their feet in water and watching it go brown is a spectacular waste of money.

Final thoughts - if this book demonstrates how bad science reporting is, what else is being reported badly that we should know about? Finance? Politics? Help!! Also, why is there no organisation with teeth that can bring people to account for irresponsible reporting? A free press is central to our world of course, but not a wild press, trampling all over everyone and everything without so much as a backward glance.

a must read book
This is one of those books that you read and then imemdiately want to purchase for virtually everybody you know - the ones who will already agree, and the ones who will argue (using bad science) until they are blue in the face.
This is an amusing, informative and very interesting read that addresses some highly disturbing stories, such as the MMR media hoax, MRSA testing, "studies" involving thousands of children, the qualifications of certain "doctors" and many more besides.
At the same time as drawing our attention to these issues we also learn about scientific testing, statistics, health related matters and more, but in a way that amazingly is not patronising, not overly simplified and highly entertaining.
This is a book where you definitely learn a great deal, but laugh a lot at the same time. This was one of those books where I found myself "tsktsking" and shaking my head whilst on the bus, and exclaiming "hah, listen to this" to my bemused housemate whenever something particularly caught my attention.
I would urge everyone to read this book, it should be compulsory reading for teens and adult alike. I have a feeling a lot of my friends may find this in their stocking this xmas!
Now stop reading reviews and add it to your basket ;-)