Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks

Ben Goldacre

McClelland & Stewart, Oct 12, 2010 - Science - 304 pages

The informative and witty expose of the "bad science" we are all subjected to, called "one of the essential reads of the year" by New Scientist.

We are obsessed with our health. And yet — from the media's "world-expert microbiologist" with a mail-order Ph.D. in his garden shed laboratory, and via multiple health scares and miracle cures — we are constantly bombarded with inaccurate, contradictory, and sometimes even misleading information. Until now. Ben Goldacre masterfully dismantles the questionable science behind some of the great drug trials, court cases, and missed opportunities of our time, but he also goes further: out of the bullshit, he shows us the fascinating story of how we know what we know, and gives us the tools to uncover bad science for ourselves.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - lycaenidae - LibraryThing

Highly recommend the chapters about Statistics and about HIV/AIDS treatment in South Africa -- would rate those chapters a 5. The rest of the book was in need of better editing and less pomposity.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - jetangen4571 - LibraryThing

audiobook, crooks, education, greed, medical, nonfiction, reference, science, social-issues, whispersync, fraud A detailed reminder to verify claims and rationality of products that are aimed at ...

Contents

• Brain Gym: 15
• The Progenium XY Complex: 23
• Homeopathy: 30
• The Placebo Effect: 65
• The Nonsense du our: 87
• Nutritionists: 131
• Is Mainstream Medicine Evil?: 147
• Whyi Clever People Believe Stupid Things: 172
• Bad Stats: 186
• The llediais MMR Hoax: 253
• Notes: 259
• Further Reading and Acln0wlcdgmcnts: 270

About the author

BEN GOLDACRE is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and medical doctor who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims made by scaremongering journalists, dodgy government reports, evil pharmaceutical corporations, PR companies, and quacks. He has written a weekly "Bad Science" column in the Guardian since 2003, and has made acclaimed documentaries for BBC Radio, including "The Placebo Effect" and "The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists." Trained in Oxford and London, with brief forays into academia, he is thirty-five and works full-time as a medical doctor in London.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks
• Author: Ben Goldacre
• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, 2010
• ISBN: 0771035764, 9780771035760
• Length: 304 pages
• Subjects: Health & Fitness / General; Health & Fitness / Health Care Issues; Science / Life Sciences / General