Bad Science
Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
The informative and witty exposé 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 b******t, he shows us the fascinating story of how we know what we know, and gives us the tools to uncover bad science for ourselves.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Goldacre is the acerbic quackbuster who's a thorn in the side of celebrity nutritionists and alternative medicine practitioners in Britain through his "Bad Science" column in the Guardian. And now this M.D. and formidable investigative journalist brings his eye-popping insistence on rigorous science to this side of the Atlantic. There's plenty to debunk, like the detox footbaths that turn brown whether your feet are in them or not. Or the homeopathic remedies that are no more effective than placebos (i.e., sugar pills). Goldacre's on to Big Pharma as well, skewering the industry's manipulation of statistics and suppression of negative results in clinical trials. The media take their hits as well for fueling the scare over the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine's link to autism a link that researchers have definitively debunked. And there's hell to pay for the growing legion of nutritionists and the lucrative nutritional supplement business, which come under Goldacre's special derision as "The Nonsense Du Jour" and "intellectual crimes." Not that Goldacre's always so solemn or scolding. His ongoing battle with Brit nutritionist Gillian McKeith is both unsettling and an amusing illustration of how simple it is to pull back the curtain on the wizard of Oz.
Customer Reviews
Witty and engaging
I love this book. The author is hilarious and teaches us something to boot. You can't ask for more than that.
G
This is a must read. Every student should read this book early in their schooling to help them develop critical thinking skills.