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. ( )

I bought this book because of a review in PPC. If you are a foody and don't know what PPC is, ask me.

I had expected something a bit funnier, but Mr Goldacre is very serious indeed. He worries about our lack of understanding of science and he points out some very grave consequences. Please read the book.

He is so angry that it may be relevant to note that his views aren't radical at all. This is a very sensible and if I may say so moderate person deeply worried about what is called the `culture gap' in the Netherlands.

The only point where I disgree with him is when he doesn't take the New Age movement seriously as a threat to rationality. This may be because they are not in his remit (or maybe he just thinks that these people are nuts and so beyond hope). I don't know, I didn't ask him. But I in any case find it deeply worrying that people with academic degrees (and I know such people) seem willing to believe anything and everything without a single critical thought.

Thank goodness I also know somebody who grew up as a child of two New Agers and is now studying godsdienstwetenschappen (I don't know how this is called in English. In Dutch it means Science of Religion which sounds odd to my ears) to make sense of that. ( )

Ben Goldacre writes an incredibly intelligent and accessible deconstruction of homeopathy, nutrionism, and big pharma, and how they all abuse science and play on people's hopes and fears with only one real goal - money.

Goldacre doesn't actually cover the money angle too much, though, as that is incidental to the more insidious aspects of this 'bad science'. The twisting of facts, hiding of methods, and bald-faced lying in reporting is making people distrustful of any science, and is ultimately causing deaths (I read with open-mouthed amazement at the stupidity of the South African authorities who listened to nutrionists advocating vitamin C instead of the anti-retro virals backed up by large-scale trial-based evidence).

Ultimately, Goldacre's goal is make the general public aware of how science should be conducted, and how scientific evidence should be presented - and if methods are hidden, or references obscured, then this should all be a big red flag to warn you off.

Its a shame, then, that this book will likely be dismissed by that same general public as they want to believe in the miracle pill that will never come. ( )

Brilliant book that I think should be required reading by all adults. It breaks the mythology surrounding homeopathy and other quasi-scientific ploys. Delves into the placebo effect, antioxidants and all sorts of interesting ways to fool the public with slick marketing. Read it before you buy another face product! ( )

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre attempts to give the reader the knowledge to reflect on science in the news to draw his or her own conclusions. He explains, by using current examples, the techniques used to make outrageous and untrue statements that are supposedly supported by research. He takes a few of these claims, like the workings of homeopathy and special diets, looks at the supporting research, and then explains why the statements are false.

Even though I knew of some of the claims, and knew they sounded unbelievable, this book gave more of a background and helped me to understand more about the techniques used in science (and abused, a lot). I highly recommend this book, though I am afraid that it won't bring change to those people who believe in the claims that this books disproves.

Ben Goldacre has a column in The Guardian, which are published as a blog here: http://www.badscience.net/ ( )

"We need to make some sense of all this, and appreciate just how deep into our culture the misunderstandings and misrepresentations of science go. If I am known at all, it is for dismantling foolish media stories about science: it is the bulk of my work, my oeuvre, and I am slightly ashamed to say that I have over five hundred stories to choose from, in illustrating the points I intend to make here. You may well count this as obsessional."

On the other hand, we may well count this as absolutely necessary.

Goldacre has been writing his "Bad Science" column in the UK's Guardian newspaper since 2003. When it first appeared, I thought, "It's about damned time; we need something like this!" Readers of that column, or his excellent blog at www.badscience.net, will recognise many of the themes of this book. He picks apart the nonsense peddled by pseudo-scientific pill salesmen, nutritionists, homoeopaths, beauticians, and the like. And he shows how a little education about basic scientific principles could go a long way to stopping the foolish and harmful choices made by consumers, school boards, and politicians.

Many of these are encouraged by the media, who as a group are sadly lax in their duties of honest reporting. Even to someone already cynical, many of the stories illustrated in this book are shocking; my default reaction to *any* health story in the news is now to believe that it's probably completely baseless. Think that's unnecessarily skeptical? Read this book, and see if you don't end up agreeing.

It doesn't have to be this way. Goldacre is careful to do more than just criticise; he also shows how good journalism could work. It doesn't seem likely to happen soon, but that's no excuse for us not to demand better.

In the mean time, we have this book. It's clever, it's funny, it's angry, and it's easy to follow. I also think it's important. I can't recommend it highly enough. ( )

Excellent - confirms all my scepticism about much advertising and "advice" offered to us in the media. I'm going to give this to my biochemist dad when I've finished it as he'll be delighted with it! ( )

I love this book. It's not just that I agree with most of what Ben Goldacre says (I do, but that's beside the point), it's that this is a testament to the importance of informed, evidence based argument when dealing with hot-topic scientific issues that oft-times get distorted by media hyperbole. Goldacre breaks down the basis of scientific method and review and reconstructs it, chapter by chapter, using pertinent examples of how the modern media and practitioners of alternative medicine warp the facts to suit their own ends. It should be compulsory reading for anyone starting a PhD or embarking on a career in any form of medical science. If there's one take home message, it's that you don't have to agree with Dr Goldacre but you do have to be informed by scientific evidence if you actually disagree. It's well written and a quick read and should be essential reading for anyone who has an interest in their own health and well being and a desire to be empowered to make evidence-based decisions on their own health care. Scientific fact is not just for scientists and this is a work that goes a long way towards making it seem more accessible to us all. It's a sobering thought that any one of us is probably as qualified to comment on hot health topics as the majority of the journalists who report health issues. Liking Ben Goldacre and his writing style (which can be abrasive and blunt) is not a pre-requisite to getting the most out of this book. Sometimes blunt is better. ( )

Dr Goldacre has a bee in his bonnet, a very justifiable bee, the media continues to misrepresent science and scientists, to make stories out of nothing and create scares out of thin air. He discusses among other things the MMR hoax, so- called nutritionists (he does forget however that there are perfectly respectable nutritionists working in public health, where they belong), that woman McKeith and other quacks.
He does go on a bit, but then he is justifably angry. He also manages to describe some scientific and mathematical concepts in a very accessible way .
Entertaining and informative.

This is an important book with two main themes. The first is what really goes on behind medical trials - the placebo effect; how many trials are poorly designed; how their data is reported and manipulated; and then how the media takes it, twists it and sensationalises it. The second is his personal crusade against quackery in all its alternative therapy forms.
Goldacre is a proper doctor working in the NHS, and the book has grown out of his weekly column for the Guardian, also called Bad Science. Everything he's written for them and loads more is on his website Bad Science.net.

The author is absolutely scathing about homeopathy, Gillian McKeith and all the so-called nutritionists, however he saves the best 'til last and tackles MRSA and MMR. Apart from all the flawed research, bad testing and manipulation of results, he is also highly contemptuous of all the bad reporting by non-scientists who whipped up the media frenzy which resulted in a huge rise in measles cases, and thousands upon thousands of non-vaccinated children. My daughter was MMR age when this was at its peak, and I remember telling other mums at toddlers that the right thing to do was to get the vaccinations.

The book was thought-provoking and an educational read for me. It's one major failing was although it has notes/references at the back, it has no index, which would make it so much easier to refer back to. As a former devotee of homeopathic belladonna eyedrops for my hayfever, it's still difficult to believe that the easing of symptoms I experienced were the placebo effect in action - however logic tells me it must be so. It was shocking to read about all the incompetence going on in the medical world, and if I'm honest Goldacre comes across as a little bit smug and pleased with himself about the great public service he's doing - but someone does need to do it -so please do carry on Dr Ben! ( )

Bad Science is a chilling book. Although the author Ben Goldacre peppers the text with funny quips and asides, the points raised in the book gives us a scary view of how medical tomfoolery (and not just restricted to quacks) have endangered our health and well-being.

He starts off with a brief explanation on basic science by debunking obvious quackery like detox and ear candling. Then he starts with some soft targets: brain gym, homeopathy, pill pushers, etc. Then he tackles medical nonsense that we thought were “true”, such as the idea that vitamin C cures and/or prevents the common cold.

In case you think Dr Goldacre is debunking alties because he’s in the pocket of “Big Pharma”, he proceeds to demolish the lies and expose the dirty tricks used by the pharmaceutical companies to bamboozle the public. I’m sure even die-hard alties would enjoy this part of the book.

Read more ( )

Bad Science is about people who abuse the scientific approach and those who misrepresent science - whether it be the media or those who profit from it. It looks at what science reporting has evolved into and how the unprincipled gain from it. And it's a great read.
If, like me, you sat thru the MMR scare amazed at what you saw, you'll enjoy its voice of sanity.
Ben Goldacre was new to me (as I don't read The Guardian), but I'm now an avid reader of his Bad Science blog. ( )

I hadn't come across Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in The Guardian before reading this book, which is a shame as it's the sort of thing I usually enjoy, but at least I've now got a pretty clear idea of what I've been missing. This is a crash course in the kind of clear-headed debunking of charlatans, scaremongerers and shysters the author so obviously specialises in. I got the impression that the initial aim here was (while making some serious points) to provide a lighthearted look at some of the more preposterous pseudo-science claims and media scares currently in circulation. What it comes out as is a just-under control - if entirely justifiable - near-rant by a man of science left confounded by the idiocies of the modern world. ( )

This reviewer tends to get a little bit squirm-ish each time she spends time on a book which is exposing some combination of shenanigans and cognitive deficiencies--as Bad Science does pretty well--when she simultaneously reads stuff like "Includes a brilliant, shocking and previously unpublishable new chapter" (about Matthias Rath, a prominent ARV drug denier), and "The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller" on the cover. A more honest analysis of anything like this should bring a little more understanding of why this all happens, for which various authors could start to look quite close to home (In other words--the profit motive and marketing just gets everywhere, don't you know . . . ).

Ben Goldacre makes a whistle-stop tour of questionable therapies, from ostensibly benign fads that do little more than portray a shoddy way to educate, to profiteering supplement pills masquerading under readily falsifiable claims to improve health, to outright mendacious efforts to divert sick people from mainstream treatment to harmful alternatives. The motivation for all these behaviours is supposedly profit, since the higher profile perpetrators typically have the splendour of their living accommodation described. It was unclear to this reviewer to what extent delusion was supposed to have crept in also, on the part of the purveyors of bad science, that is.

But if non-establishment quackery is contrary to the interests of the consuming public (and dangerously so in some realms), then the legitimate drug business is hardly saintly, and can at best be described as having partially aligned interests with those of patients. However, the economics of medicine is barely touched in the book, other than to be pointed out as mostly distasteful and undesired (see below). This is an omission, although an understandable one, since the subject is a room of books all by itself, and would distract from Goldacre's pro-scientific method message.

The factors behind the success of quackery in the realm of demand are a bit more numerous: People have strong desires to be cured (or to be excused from the effects of unhealthy choices), there is the little-understood "placebo effect", given its own chapter which spends at least half of its words on ethics rather than science, and eventually there are a couple of chapters on heuristics and biases and the ease with which they can be exploited, by bad statistics among other things. Finally there is massive susceptibility to health scares, such as the MMR vaccine hoax which did real medical harm in the UK.

Unfortunately, none of this is actually, explained very scientifically. That might not ordinarily be a problem, but by spending a good deal of the first part of the text vaunting the scientific (evidence-based) method, the author is somewhat self-shorn of much authority to describe what are universally phenomena of social science. And this is a pity because it gives the book too much of a vaccuous "Everyone should be scientific and sceptical in all their ways" call-out, and tinges it with a little too much polemical flavour. This reviewer wonders if that outcome was consciously intended; she doesn't really know.

This early framing also appears to contribute to this reviewer's sense that there were hardly any solutions to the indentified problems in the book, short of uneconomic crusades of the type alluded to by Goldacre's (and The Guardian newspaper's) defence against a lengthy suit launched by the aforementioned Mr Rath (and as admirable as those are, this reviewer finds it hard to build her hopes up that the willing supply of such principled actions as Goldacre's will be anywhere near effective against his foes--there will be nowhere near enough Ben Goldacres, and even fewer media backers ready to kick in the financial muscle). The closest the author gets to improvements to the system is for a national (government maintained) register of clinical trials, with requirements to populate this record before any trial takes place (so that survivorship, or positive-outcome bias can be reduced). This would be hard to enforce without significantly greater regulation of the field, and since it is already one of the most highly regulated businesses it is easy to be sceptical about the likelihood of that, and also to be worried about unintended consequences.

This reviewer should probably state opinion which colours what she perceives as the broader failing of this book, which is also the over-arching failure of the medical industry. And it is that incentive structure compatability throughout is riven with flaws that are never addressed in an economic framework, and the failure of ethics to compensate for this is lamented, but should really be expected. As such, Goldacre's remedy to bad science, which really seems to boil down to people just being more scientific is, well, duh!

Francesca ( )

A fascinating look at the science going on today and being released in the widespread media. It talked of how very few of the "studies" we see quoted are ever really written by scientific journalists or even reviewed by them. The "studies" we do see may have flawed methods and if the results aren't spot on with the predictions, a lot of times the outcomes are just put in desk drawers and forgotten (the link between smoking and cancer). But the most fascinating part of the book was learning the pharmaceutical companies are not permitted to market to the public in Britain, they can only market and push their wares to doctors. I wonder how different things would be in this country if we couldn't be marketed to? ( )

A light-hearted lay approach to deconstructing what awful messes journalists and 'humanities graduates' can make of basic statistics and scientific press releases - and actual science papers on the rare occasions that they look at them. The focus is mainly on medicine and health - partly because Dr. Goldacre is himself a medical doctor but also because that is where the media seem to find so many stories on the assumption that people like them.

Other key chapters focus on Homeopaths, Nutritionists and in a rare break from health - children's education. The overall message is quite straightforward. Science isn't difficult, even if the details can be - you test your idea fairly and then faithfully report the outcomes, but exaggeration doesn't help, even if it means the story sounds better. And arranging a non-fair test is just stupid, it's as difficult and expensive to do as a fair test, but doesn't tell you anything and may even mean that you end up believing in something that is wrong.

Ben carefully and patiently takes you through the various ways in which the human brain is capable of fooling itself: much like optical illusions, humans are good at spotting patterns even when they aren't there; and how nature contrives to aid this process via the placebo effect and 'regression to the mean'. He then moves on to looking at what is a 'fair' test through the means of various counterexamples so readily provided by Complementary Alternative Medicine practitioners. It's not that they are lying or deliberate fraudsters - although this may be true too - it's that in the examples he chose it is clear that for whatever claim is made, no evidence exists to substantiate it. It is possible, in contravention of all currently known theory, that some of these practises and products may work - but until you test it with controls against the placebo effect, in sufficient numbers of patients and duration, with 'blinded' and properly randomised procedures, to avoid regression to the mean and bias, you can't know if it is working. It's not the product per se that Ben has a problem with, it's the methods used to claim it works.
Conventional medicine isn't of course immune from this either, and Ben spends a while discussing how they can be even more creative in presenting artificially good news. But just because a pharmaceutical company has presented misleading data doesn't mean therefore that the CAM product is better or vice versa.

Occasionally he gets bogged down in details, and sometimes he skips a few steps that perhaps would be clearer if they fully explained - a tricky line to draw. I'm not sure how much basic understanding is required to read this - some definitely, especially familiarity with logical arguments. So it isn't suitable for just anybody. There are numerous references at the back to the various papers and studies he’s quoting. But because he wants this read easily they are not numbered in the text – which makes them hard to check. 'Humanities graduates' get a few ad hominem attacks levelled against them. I don't know if a newspaper editor is more or less likely to be a humanities graduate, but the practise of assigning high profile science stories to a general reporter rather than a specialist science correspondent does seem to bring out the worst in reporting standards.

What to do about it - this is perhaps the weakest point in Ben's book. Other than calling for a national trials database he makes few suggestions. You should read the method and results sections for the published paper that underlies any story - if you can't find a published paper then the story is probably rubbish to start with. But who has time to read and check such things? Ask searching questions. Or else treat almost everything you come across with a great deal of scepticism.

The light hearted tone prevails though. Although many people are silly, truth and wisdom will out, especially if you read this worthwhile book and think about what underlies some of the assertions the media and CAM are trying to tell you. Besides in many places it's also quite funny.

The differences between this and the latest re-print, is that the new impression contains an extra chapter on the expolits of one Mattias Rath, who was suing Ben at the time of the first printing. All the gory details including the entirity of the new chapter, can be found on Ben's Blog - Ben on Rath

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brilliant, absolutely excellent. A must read for anyone interested in science, medicine, health, alternative medicine or nutrition. Or if you just enjoy intelligent writing and the debunking of myths. ( )

An extension of his blog, this is a collection of basically rants about how science and statistics are abused by a variety of people. It also looks at faulty science behind some nutritionists and some of their dodgy "credentials". His emphasis is on making people question "facts" and double check the evidence.

However, people don't have the time for a lot of this, and when you're offered a glimmer of hope people tend to take it. The placebo effect is explored here and he does admit that it works and works well if people load it with belief, so maybe examining everything doesn't always work as well as it might.

It's a book worth reading, if only to read why he is so virulently opposed to some people's "science", I must admit to having read some of the books involved and having some reservations but it wasn't until I actually read this that I truly realised what was bothering me about them.

This is part of the problem, I do have a background in Science but I really didn't have enough energy or time to really exhaustively research some of the "facts" given to me by some of these writers. The fact that there are people like Ben Goldacre out there help me sort the truth from the fiction.

The only unfortunate thing is that, in general, those who should read this won't and those who do already have sceptical minds. ( )

Just brilliant. A calm and sensible consideration of some of the widespread Alternative Medicine wondercures our press bandy around without a shred of evidence. Whether a cynic or a new ager, this is a must read. ( )

A truly beautiful book.

The scariest bit of fun or perhaps the funniest scare you will have for a good long while.

I read a fair amount of science and sceptical material and still this book quietly, in it's own down to earth and matter of fact style, blew me away. You can actually hear the scales from your eyes shatter as they hit the ground.

I can't recommend it enough to anyone who ever has or ever might need medical advice.

Awake humanity and reclaim your sanity and show the newspapers and those who benefit from their laziness and ignorance to make fortunes from the innocent and ignorant exactly what you think.

Truly Ben Goldacre is Spartacus. (you know what I mean)

Just go read it then you too can stand up and claim that name for yourself. (you know what I mean) ( )

Should put paid to unverified and unverifiable treatments. ( )