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Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
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Ben writes a column - Guardian, I think. He's brilliant! Doesn't suffer fools gladly and there are plenty out there - fools and charlatans both.
I love Ben Goldacre - Simon Singh covers similar subjects in his columns and Twitter feed (and more code/maths subjects in his books):https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
I had the paperback of this.Shame it wasn't an ebook. I'd love to re-read it.
Simon sort of panicked me into suggesting this as a group read. I then worried because plenty of people, particularly humanities graduates, find Goldacre’s style abrasive and arrogant. They are missing the main point, though, which is that he’s right.I spent 12 years up to my retirement in 2012 heading a team supplying evidence summaries to the local primary care trusts and training their staff in doing their own systematic reviews. Then the “Alliance” government felt the need to urine-mark the healthcare sector. The survivors of my team are now in local government somewhere and I have no idea who’s funnelling clinical evidence into the CCGs, CFTs, CSSs, LATs and the rest of the alphabetti spaghetti that constitutes the rump NHS that hasn’t been stealth privatised yet. Which I suppose is more of a worry than whether or not you like Goldacre’s style. Anyway, we need people like him.
Too right. Good choice, Richard. I'm another Ben Goldacre fan.
Just wonderin... can't remember if Ben's done a spiel about the current Statins debate? Feeling a tad smug cos when we went for our MOT, my statins were mega good - cos I eat mostly fish and have been weightwatchering for ever.
I read this a year or so ago, very good book.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I had the paperback of this.Shame it wasn't an ebook. I'd love to re-read it."
It is an ebook - I've got it.
I meant shame the copy I had wasn't an ebook.Can't see myself buying it again.
I'm breaking the bank buying books because of that Damn David Staniforth's fave authors thread.
I got it for 99p on a Kindle daily giveaway... I find he has a tendency to think he's the only one who's right. As Richard says he can be arrogant.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I meant shame the copy I had wasn't an ebook.Can't see myself buying it again.
I'm breaking the bank buying books because of that Damn David Staniforth's fave authors thread."
Glad to be of service, madam :~)
Peta wrote: "I got it for 99p on a Kindle daily giveaway... I find he has a tendency to think he's the only one who's right. As Richard says he can be arrogant."
Arrogant is fine - cos he is prob right anyway
Karen wrote: "Peta wrote: "Arrogant is fine - cos he is prob right anyway"Speaking as father and father-in-law to nurses, I say of course he's arrogant - he's a doctor! But on his central theme - that decisions about our health ought to be based on evidence rather than smoke and mirrors - he's def right.
Having suggested the book, I've now dutifully finished rereading it. One thing that jumps out at you from the 2nd edition is all the fulsome reviews from the likes of the Telegraph, Times, Mail et al, the very same papers he savagely lambasts for the inaccuracy, nay, mendacity of their science reporting. We appear to have entered the post-ironic zone.
Postscript: So there we were, sitting in a Welsh bar sampling the local single malt (Penderyn). This would have been much cosier but for the (not Welsh) woman talking loudly behind us. Suddenly she started singing the praises Ben Goldacre, encouraging her listeners to read his Guardian column and his book in which he demolishes Gillian KcKeith et al. “He’s also against drugs,” she proclaimed and, without pausing for breath, went on to detail how being prescribed steroids as a teenager had wrecked her digestion. She was now once again able to eat normally, thanks to the help of a herbologist who had her on turmeric and charcoal and, of course, never eating proteins and carbohydrates in the same meal.So close, and yet so far.
English reserve (a.k.a. cowardice) prevailed.
It divided opinion chez Martinus: I really liked it but the missus was indifferent. Must be my Welsh genes at work.
I read something that Scottish whiskey was shot into space three years ago and it's due back soon.Id google it, but I'm lazy.
If it was Scottish it would by whisky. It's Irish and American that have the e.
We celebrated the purchase of our new abode by breaking into the Ardbeg Corryvreckan. That was something else again. As my uncle Martin said under different circumstances, "like angels pissing on my tongue".
That's disappointing.I was expecting tinkling angels.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "That's disappointing.I was expecting tinkling angels."
Curiously, a Google image search on those exact terms doesn't bring any up. But it did yield a picture of Gordon Brown.
Google image search.You're doing it wrong.
If he gets Gordon Brown he doing it very wring!!
It think we have squeezed every last drop out of that joke.
You might think so, but you're wryng.
Sigh....What was this thread about, exactly?
I dunno.Some book or other.
Full of spleen, this is a hilarious, invigorating and informative journey through the world of Bad Science. When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an 'Aqua Detox' footbath, releasing her toxins into the water, turning it brown, he thought he'd try the same at home. 'Like some kind of Johnny Ball cum Witchfinder General', using his girlfriend's Barbie doll, he gently passed an electrical current through the warm salt water. It turned brown. In his words: 'before my very eyes, the world's first Detox Barbie was sat, with her feet in a pool of brown sludge, purged of a weekend's immorality.' Dr Ben Goldacre is the author of the Bad Science column in the Guardian. His book is about all the 'bad science' we are constantly bombarded with in the media and in advertising. At a time when science is used to prove everything and nothing, everyone has their own 'bad science' moments from the useless pie-chart on the back of cereal packets to the use of the word 'visibly' in cosmetics ads
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-B...