He's not saying Science is bad, just that it is often misused and misrepresented, usually for commercial reasons. ( )

I finished Bad Science by Ben Goldacre yesterday, and I have to say that it’s probably the best book I’ve read so far this year. It’s simply brilliant.

Goldacre is a practising doctor in the NHS, but is also a columnist for the Guardian newspaper and his own website, badscience.net, which he uses to pick apart other newspaper articles on the subject of science.

Rather than a collection of past columns, which I was half-expecting, this is an entirely new book and written as one, in that it references backwards and forwards in the text to things that are covered elsewhere.

The subject material is media coverage of science in general, and in particular its coverage of pseudomedical treatments/cures. Goldacre criticises the media for simply not understanding the science behind most of their stories, and for not bothering to read the actual peer-reviewed trial results in academic publications.

Indeed, that is if there are any published results. So many articles seem to be based on press releases from “scientists” who claim to have produced stunning datasets which completely contradict existing scientific theories, but then fail to show how these results came about, even years later.

Goldacre does become a bit one-track in this, repeating the questions over and over again: “where is this data published? Is it in a scientific journal where it can be examined and criticised?” But you can forgive him this, because it is these simple questions that most journalists fail to ask, every time.

Goldacre is an angry writer on this subject. When I read Gomorrah last month, it was by an equally angry author, but I felt that his anger tainted the writing somewhat. The narrative was a bit disjointed, and he just wanted to name and shame people.

In Bad Science, Goldacre is equally eager to name and shame those who commit these crimes against journalism, but it’s in a more measured approach as he deconstructs exactly why they failed to write clearly or accurately. He also tears apart the celebrity “scientists” such as nutritionist Gillian McKeith, showing how their attempts to claim that their actions/theories are scientific are in fact complete tripe.

Whilst Goldacre’s anger comes through in the text, so does his willingness to inform the public of the methods they should be using to examine science in the media. He writes that the sole intention of his book is to give the reader the skills to call bullshit when reading a newspaper, and to give clear reasons why the story in question is at best inaccurate and at worst a total crock of shit.

He does so brilliantly. I feel so much cleverer after reading this book, even if I did consider myself to be an ultra-cynical consumer of the media beforehand. It’s simply incredible how often the media get it wrong when it comes to science stories, or chooses to extrapolate from a single data point to something which is neither claimed nor proved by the data as a whole.

Goldacre reserves his strongest ire for generalist journalists who consider themselves to be cleverer than the scientists, and so re-interpret any data with which they are presented. Admittedly, his caricaturing of them all as humanities graduates is a little heavy-handed and unnecessary, but you can see why he does it.

I can’t recommend this book enough for anyone that has even a passing interest in the media, science, medicine, “miracle cures” and how they interact. This should be prescribed reading for classrooms. ( )

Ben Goldacre, from his Guardian column and now with this book, has set himself up as the Michael Moore of the medical community. So, after a cursory introduction to the scientific method as it applies to medicine, he lets loose his righteous rage at atlernative medicine, dieticians, the pharmaceutical industry, and the media's coverage of medical scare stories. The criticisms seem authoritative, fair and accurate, and serve an important public role, highlighting the pseudo-scientific rubbish that gets peddled by dodgy companies and poor journalism. Many times, the damage seems trivial, almost comical, such as the dubious claims of the Aqua Detox foot bath. At other times, lives are lost, in their thousands. There's no doubt these are real scandals, and deserve Ben's vitriol.

But although I wanted to love this book, and was swayed in my anticipation by the various award nominations it received, I was a little disappointed. First, the journalist style is very readable, and functional, but behind it Ben doesn't really disguise a rather egotistical, arrogant, pushy, occasionally deliberately provocative man, and his voice grated on me a little. And the shape of the book is rather haphazard and rushed, for instance with the research method tutorials appearing at the start - then at the middle - and I would have loved some editorial restructuring in some chapters.

Far more critically, after successfully attacking the media, the pharmaceutical industry, and much else in society, he didn't really provide any advice for solutions. He is in a unique position to provide such advice, but very little came - what did come was piecemeal and a little contradictory. I wasn't sure if he was saying it was the responsibility of joe/jane public to step up, learn and critically appraise everything that comes his/her way (unrealistic), or the responsibilty of the media to reel back their impulsive need for headlines and let the experts write everything sensibly, or the scientific community for making their voices heard better or what. There is a final additional chapter where he claims to tell us "some of what can be done to fix it." Unfortunately what follows is nothing of the sort - instead he largely just summarises the criticisms of the book. It seems to me that government should be pressed to legislate against any bogus claims made by companies, false research by pharmaceuticals and that clearly inaccurate scientific reporting by the media should lead to similar penalties to libellous ones against celebrities (i.e. it would cost a fortune or require a prominent and speedy retraction). I believe that the watchdogs of the media, trading standards, and advertisements should be given far larger, sharper teeth to tackle all the nonscientific rubbish more effectively and swiftly. I would also love it if critical thinking and the scientific method were taught in schools, along with the tedious learning of facts that largely goes on now. These are obvious points that I and my research scientist friends discuss frequently, so why didn't Ben mention such things? Such a wasted opportunity.

I also felt a little unconvinced by his portrayal of science. My problem, I suppose, was that as a research scientist myself, I found the lessons on research somewhat patronising and not quite reflecting the reality on the ground, and it seemed clear to me that Ben had published little or no research himself. There seemed to be times, especially early on, when he was claiming that science was simple - so simple that everyone can understand academic papers. This may be true of review papers, which I guess he mainly reads, but for much of primary research, this simply isn't true - particularly if you factor in that poxy science claims can be made in almost any scientific field going. For a start, sometimes the methods really are very complex that only a few experts can understand it. Then the experiments themselves can be very messy and interpretation can be difficult, particularly when many papers produce somewhat conflicting results. So although I'm not in any way knocking Ben's main conclusions, I just found his description of research a little unrealistic and perhaps he could have explained things with more honesty and depth on occasion.

Finally, I found the book a bit repetitious. In a sense, this was the same point over and over again through 16-odd chapters, and although I still found everything reasonably interesting, I was pretty relieved when the end came.

So if you don't know anything about the scientific method, or the evils and inaccuracies of alternative medicine, nutritionists, journalists, then the book is essential reading. On the other hand, if you are already critical of such things, I would say the book has only limited appeal. ( )

"Bad science" covers an important topic. In our open-minded, scientific world we rely too much on simple receipts that promise us to live longer, healthier, pain-free etc. A blue pill for this, a pink pill for that... The honest truth is that it's not that simple. However, alternative and complementary medicine have created a huge market that makes use of our all too human hope for easy solutions. "But it works" is the most common reply, and "it has been scientifically proven"! Really? The book lets you look behind the curtain. * It explains the methodological flaws of so-called trials. * It reveals the pseudo-academic background of the experts. * It explains the "Placebo effect", which is responsible for amazing results. * It points out the disastrous influence of the media in the UK.* It tells you something about "meta-analysis".* It teaches you to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. :-)"Bad science" will rob some of your illusions. Vitamin C prevents a cold? No, it supports the treatment but doesn't "prevent" it. Omega-3 fatty acid? No. The new next generation wonder-pill? Unlikely. Unfortunately it's not easy to apply the new knowledge. Having the proper tools is one thing, investing time and effort is another. So the most important lesson I took out of the book is that the world is complex and that it pays out to be skeptical. It's all too easy to get manipulated. Arm yourself - with knowledge. ( )

"Bad science" covers an important topic. In our open-minded, scientific world we rely too much on simple receipts that promise us to live longer, healthier, pain-free etc. A blue pill for this, a pink pill for that... The honest truth is that it's not that simple. However, alternative and complementary medicine have created a huge market that makes use of our all too human hope for easy solutions. "But it works" is the most common reply, and "it has been scientifically proven"! Really? The book lets you look behind the curtain. * It explains the methodological flaws of so-called trials. * It reveals the pseudo-academic background of the experts. * It explains the "Placebo effect", which is responsible for amazing results. * It points out the disastrous influence of the media in the UK.* It tells you something about "meta-analysis".* It teaches you to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. :-)"Bad science" will rob some of your illusions. Vitamin C prevents a cold? No, it supports the treatment but doesn't "prevent" it. Omega-3 fatty acid? No. The new next generation wonder-pill? Unlikely. Unfortunately it's not easy to apply the new knowledge. Having the proper tools is one thing, investing time and effort is another. So the most important lesson I took out of the book is that the world is complex and that it pays out to be skeptical. It's all too easy to get manipulated. Arm yourself - with knowledge. ( )