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Book: Bad Science
Ben Goldacre, of “The Guardian” fame, currently sits top of the charts in Amazon book sales in the Popular Science category. His (very) recent book “Bad Science” was an immediate hit, something that is both comforting and a bit unexpected (at least for me).
Don’t get me wrong, I particularly enjoy Ben’s writing and his take on the CAM proponents, Big Pharma evils, and the inadequacies of journalists when reporting science. So, when I say “unexpected”, I mean it in the context of pseudoscientists rising in popularity, unscientific modalities becoming more prevalent, and media outlets misrepresenting science more and more frequently! When I consider these phenomena I can’t help but be surprised to hear that a book about bad science is top of Amazon’s charts.
But Ben actually deserves it. Through his “Bad Science” blog and his column in “The Guardian”, he has been a dedicated crusader for many years now. And he has managed to replicate the same entertaining and highly informative writing in his book as well!
The book begins with relatively easy concepts: pure unscientific crap in the form of Brain Gym, detoxification, homeopathy, and the rise of nutritional therapists -a bunch of people with potentially no credentials, giving advice on health and diet issues. Nutritionists tend to support their claims with sciency sounding arguments. Usually these fall into two categories: a) ridiculous extrapolations from cherry picked studies, and b) simply making stuff up! His take on prominent nutritionist Patrick Holford is one of the highlights in this book!
Further attacks on common alternative medicine modalities are relentless and conclusive: there is nothing left of homeopathy at the end of the book! If anyone comes out of this with even mildly positive feelings for homeopathy then he should have his head examined, because, in all honestly, he is incapable of critical thinking!
But Ben doesn’t stick on the “easy” targets (the ones that are clearly on the bad science side): he also takes on the evils of the Big Pharma and their withholding of valuable (potentially life-saving) data, as well as the responsibilities that the media have in major (but unfounded) scare stories -such as the recent MMR-autism link which resulted in a resurgence of measles in the UK and the US.
It is obvious that at no point when Ben criticizes, questions, or debunks, does he do it from authority (besides, he claims no such authority). Rather he concludes from the critical evaluation of all available evidence. And I would say this is the major learning factor in this book: to arm readers with the tools necessary for critical thinking and healthy skepticism.
And readers will actually learn a lot from Ben -unless they’re already medical doctors or statisticians. By attacking the issue of bad science he will discuss what placebo actually is; what constitutes a good clinical trial; what are the common errors in trial design; how to critically evaluate the available literature and avoid cherry picking; how to work with and understand trial statistics; and the most common (deliberate?) errors when reporting science stories that involve statistics.
You won’t be ready to perform your own trials of course :-), nevertheless you *will* be ready to get a better understanding of clinical trial results, to better evaluate whether a treatment works or not, and to uncover bias in science reporting -all very valuable skills in our time!
I conclude here with a small taste of bad science -harmless in this case and hilarious! PR company communicates with Ben:
Don’t get me wrong, I particularly enjoy Ben’s writing and his take on the CAM proponents, Big Pharma evils, and the inadequacies of journalists when reporting science. So, when I say “unexpected”, I mean it in the context of pseudoscientists rising in popularity, unscientific modalities becoming more prevalent, and media outlets misrepresenting science more and more frequently! When I consider these phenomena I can’t help but be surprised to hear that a book about bad science is top of Amazon’s charts.
But Ben actually deserves it. Through his “Bad Science” blog and his column in “The Guardian”, he has been a dedicated crusader for many years now. And he has managed to replicate the same entertaining and highly informative writing in his book as well!
The book begins with relatively easy concepts: pure unscientific crap in the form of Brain Gym, detoxification, homeopathy, and the rise of nutritional therapists -a bunch of people with potentially no credentials, giving advice on health and diet issues. Nutritionists tend to support their claims with sciency sounding arguments. Usually these fall into two categories: a) ridiculous extrapolations from cherry picked studies, and b) simply making stuff up! His take on prominent nutritionist Patrick Holford is one of the highlights in this book!
Further attacks on common alternative medicine modalities are relentless and conclusive: there is nothing left of homeopathy at the end of the book! If anyone comes out of this with even mildly positive feelings for homeopathy then he should have his head examined, because, in all honestly, he is incapable of critical thinking!
But Ben doesn’t stick on the “easy” targets (the ones that are clearly on the bad science side): he also takes on the evils of the Big Pharma and their withholding of valuable (potentially life-saving) data, as well as the responsibilities that the media have in major (but unfounded) scare stories -such as the recent MMR-autism link which resulted in a resurgence of measles in the UK and the US.
It is obvious that at no point when Ben criticizes, questions, or debunks, does he do it from authority (besides, he claims no such authority). Rather he concludes from the critical evaluation of all available evidence. And I would say this is the major learning factor in this book: to arm readers with the tools necessary for critical thinking and healthy skepticism.
And readers will actually learn a lot from Ben -unless they’re already medical doctors or statisticians. By attacking the issue of bad science he will discuss what placebo actually is; what constitutes a good clinical trial; what are the common errors in trial design; how to critically evaluate the available literature and avoid cherry picking; how to work with and understand trial statistics; and the most common (deliberate?) errors when reporting science stories that involve statistics.
You won’t be ready to perform your own trials of course :-), nevertheless you *will* be ready to get a better understanding of clinical trial results, to better evaluate whether a treatment works or not, and to uncover bias in science reporting -all very valuable skills in our time!
I conclude here with a small taste of bad science -harmless in this case and hilarious! PR company communicates with Ben:
[PR:] We are conducting a survey into the celebrity top ten sexiest walks for my client Veet (hair removal cream) and we would like to back up our survey with an equation from an expert to work out which celebrity has the sexiest walk, with theory behind it. [...]OK, but what about the survey data?
[Ben:] Are there any factors you would particularly like to have in the equation? Something sexual, perhaps?
[PR:] We would really like the factors of the equation to include the thigh to calf ratio, the shape of the leg, the look of the skin and the wiggle (swing) of the hips [...]
We haven’t conducted the survey yet, but we know what results we want to achieve. We want Beyonce to come out on top followed by other celebrities with curvy legs, such as J-Lo and Kylie and celebrities like Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse to be at the bottom [...]Science. You are doing it wrong!
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