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Bad Science
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Product Description
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'
“There are two compelling reasons to read this book. The first is to revel in its systematic dismantling of the nonsense put forth by nutritionists, homeopaths, cosmetic companies and the pharmaceutical industry in their attempts to persuade us to buy their products or buy into their philosophy. The second is for the fascinating discussion of why we are so easily duped, and what inclines us to see patterns in randomness or cause where there are none. Throw in the book's sheer entertainment value and you have one the essential reads of the year so far” New Scientist
“A hugely entertaining book…While every chapter is entertaining, a few are genuinely eye-opening…This isn't just an essential primer for anyone who has ever felt uneasy about news coverage of faddish scientific 'breakthroughs', health scares and 'studies have shown' stories – it should be on the National Curriculum.” Time Out
Books of the Year, The Scotsman, Alexander McCall's choice
Review
`It is an important book and if you were to pick up just one non-fiction book this year you'd do well to make it this one.'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
529 of 569 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
87 of 94 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I would support all the positive comments made by other reviewers of the book itself. However, I feel very short-changed by Amazon over the Kindle edition. If they want to charge more for the Kindle edition (which can't be lent to a friend or donated to Oxfam) than the paperback version, they surely need to do a tiny bit of copy-editing, rather than dumping the OCRed version on their site as if it were a Project Gutenberg freebie. Most pages of this book had one of two simple typesetting errors that could have been corrected with about 30 minutes of a copy-editor's time: "soft" hyphens, which presumably occur at the ends of lines in the print edition, are retained in the mid-dle (sic) of words on the line; conversely, spaces between words areomitted (sic), which presumably reflects line breaks in the print edition. After a while, this annoyance becomes exasperating. To add a final twist, one cross-reference in the text retained its print format, as a reference to a page number in the regular book, utterly meaningless in the Kindle edition.
Come on Amazon! Kindle is a neat bit of technology, but the quality of Kindle editions needs at least to match that of the published book if you're going to charge bookshop prices, or you'll lose your customers.
Come on Amazon! Kindle is a neat bit of technology, but the quality of Kindle editions needs at least to match that of the published book if you're going to charge bookshop prices, or you'll lose your customers.
74 of 80 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have been towing this book around with me for some weeks reading a chapter here and there. Sitting in cafes and other public venues, I have frightened passers-by with my screams of laughter at Goldacre's entertaining prose which can make some fairly dry topics not only accessible but downright funny.
I feel that I have a genuine reason for reviewing this book because I am a nurse working in clinical audit and know only too well how easy it is to manipulate statistics to mean exactly what you want. I have thus recommended this to more than one doctor about to embark on audit as a useful insight into the subject.
Frankly, I learned loads from this volume, which actually frightens me because I thought that I had a passing grasp of the power of stats. As a result, I now treat the information that comes up on my pivot tables and graphs with a new respect and query it much more closely.
My favourite part of the book has to be about Goldacre's handling of Gillian McKeith, the food guru (or whatever she is). His handling of her lack of bioscientific knowledge was excellent and made me smile. What I particularly liked was his correct explanations of the science behind the facts. There is something very elegant and beautiful about true science and he brought this out to perfection. He is clearly a great enthusiast and, at the end of the book, he recommends people to adopt a greater spirit of enquiry into the subject. Go for it!
Initially, I, like many, had thought that Mr. Goldacre would just debunk alternative therapies but I was in for a surprise. His comments on mainstream scientific research were illuminating and I must say that I had not realised that responsible minds could skew things this much - through both good intention and mendacity. His chapters relating to the media were also illuminating and, yes, journalists do get things wrong!
Anyway, my recommendation is that you buy this book - not only for yourself but also for your children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends etc.
I feel that I have a genuine reason for reviewing this book because I am a nurse working in clinical audit and know only too well how easy it is to manipulate statistics to mean exactly what you want. I have thus recommended this to more than one doctor about to embark on audit as a useful insight into the subject.
Frankly, I learned loads from this volume, which actually frightens me because I thought that I had a passing grasp of the power of stats. As a result, I now treat the information that comes up on my pivot tables and graphs with a new respect and query it much more closely.
My favourite part of the book has to be about Goldacre's handling of Gillian McKeith, the food guru (or whatever she is). His handling of her lack of bioscientific knowledge was excellent and made me smile. What I particularly liked was his correct explanations of the science behind the facts. There is something very elegant and beautiful about true science and he brought this out to perfection. He is clearly a great enthusiast and, at the end of the book, he recommends people to adopt a greater spirit of enquiry into the subject. Go for it!
Initially, I, like many, had thought that Mr. Goldacre would just debunk alternative therapies but I was in for a surprise. His comments on mainstream scientific research were illuminating and I must say that I had not realised that responsible minds could skew things this much - through both good intention and mendacity. His chapters relating to the media were also illuminating and, yes, journalists do get things wrong!
Anyway, my recommendation is that you buy this book - not only for yourself but also for your children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends etc.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bad science is good for you
Anyone whose world view is created largely by the mass media would do well to read Ben Goldacre's book to see how ignorance of scientific method and downright manipulation of data... Read more
Published 1 month ago by David Dunbar
More like this, please!
I taught science for over 40 yrs and have often despaired about the gullibility of people when it comes to advertising claims etc. This book raised my spirits! Read more
Published 2 months ago by TedKy
This book will save you money (probably)
Just finished reading the first edition of this book and the extra chapter on-line. Excellent stuff. Read more
Published 3 months ago by L. G. Howarth
Revealing and Refreshing
Ben Goldacre does what could have been done by any competent medical professional, which is to lay out the simple ground rules of scientific method and take that yardstick into the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Edward
Not applicable
I'm afraid I can't personally review this purchase as it was a gift for someone else and, therefore, they should be the one to review it. Sorry.
Published 3 months ago by Valerie Chapman
Bad science hits gold
Excellent book, well written and insightful. Will make you laugh and want to scream in the same paragraph. Read more
Published 3 months ago by book-worm
Essential for students...
Essential for all students studying research and evidence based practice modules.
A good read too, light enough for those who do not have a science background.
A good read too, light enough for those who do not have a science background.
Published 3 months ago by 12corktree
Accessible science for the unscientific
Humorous and eye-opening, I found this book difficult to put down. I can echo the sentiments of those who found it somewhat repetitive but not of that person who found it difficult... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Gamine
Brilliant Eye-opener
This has to be the most interesting book I have read in a long time. I first read it a couple of months ago and have decided to re-read it as I thought the information in the book... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Prodge
Comprehensive Exposure.
This is an amazingly clear and comprehensive exposure of the huge volume of quackery, and pseudo science pushed by Charlatans,
the Media, Journalists, alternative medicine,... Read more
the Media, Journalists, alternative medicine,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by G. Hodgson
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