Full disclosure: I am an ex-English major who hasn't taken a science class since high school. When I started reading this book (I got my copy when it was released in England), I was scared that I wouldn't be able to follow along. But I was SO WRONG- this book really gets beneath the pseudo-science (and flat out WRONG science claims) and explains everything in such a relaxed, simple, and intuitive way, I never had a problem. I learned so much from this, and I had considered myself pretty well informed BEFORE I read the book! This should be mandatory reading for ANYONE who is anti-vaccination, or pro-homeopathy. Brilliant stuff. (His blog is great too!)
Bad Science is an excellent entry to the genre of skeptical books that are, in this country, associated with Michael Shermer, James Randi, and Paul Kurtz. It is a pleasure to read, both because Goldacre writes well, and because the books from Shermer, et al, are very similar to each other and this one is in many regards refreshingly different.
Part of this stems from its national origin -- this is a very British book. As a result, it has a lot more about the MMR-vaccine-causes-autism nonsense than would have appeared in an American book, as the media panic in the U.K. was much greater than the one here. It similarly has less on faith healing and other topics that loom larger in the American consciousness.
But the book also differs in approach. In the quintessential American members of the genre, various bits of nonsense are debunked with a combination of common sense and powerful anecdote. American writers are particularly fond of grand gestures, sneaking into the back room and discovering the wizard hiding behind the curtain. That's not Goldacre's style at all. Instead, his favorite tool is the statistical blobbogram. The main targets of his scorn are holistic healers, vendors of pharmaceuticals and vitamins, who lie and abuse statistical techniques to mislead people into buying products that don't work instead of using ones that do. He similarly rails against the journalists who enable these malefactors.
Goldacre is a physician, so he spends most of his time on medical topics, but not all.
I enjoyed and appreciated every chapter of this book, and I hope many other people read it too.
I read this book several years ago, after ordering it from amazon.co.uk, and am very pleased that it's coming to North America. Although many of the examples used will be UK-specific, and thus perhaps unfamiliar to readers, the content remains very pertinent. Science and skepticism are sorely needed everywhere, but most especially in the field of medicine. In this book Dr. Ben Goldacre provides us with a wonderful primer on evaluating claims made in this most important of areas.
We're on the same side Mr. Goldacre.
That being said, I was a little disappointed in the way the author presents the subject. For example, his knocking of homeopathy and charlatan "science" frequently devolves into ad hominem. This is wholly unnecessary; we have the upper hand because science is on our side. Additionally, the author's style of writing is abrasively arrogant, which, is distracting. Most importantly, though, this book does little to promote critical thinking skills. The author spoon-feeds us the secret to the "magic" of those ludicrous detox foot pads without properly explaining why it sounds fishy, and the consequences of taking similar products' claims on its word. The reader may be left skeptical of homeopathy and the like (a good start) but lack the ability to personally assess *why* its claims are bogus and the science behind it.
Overall, however, the book was a interesting read. The reason I had to give 3.5 stars is the subject matter is *so* important that I have to hold this work to a very high standard. If you're interested in the *value* of skepticism and how to apply it generally, might I suggest "The Demon-Haunted World" (Sagan)? If you want to learn more about how statistics can be misleading... well, I'm currently reading "How To Lie With Statistics" (Huff) and a review is forthcoming.
Upfront, I am a sucker for books with this sort of title and content. Just get me started on the errors in thinking that abound, and I can go for as long as the refreshments and good company hold out.
So maybe it was a case of me not liking my own medicine.
What is good about the book? He shows that in matters of science:
1) Things are probably more complicated than the media makes it
2) You have to be skeptical of any scientific report - whether it is from a university, a pharma company, a acupuncturist, or even your mother
3) Be very careful about any statistical statements
4) A lot of sham medicine has been and is being perpetrated
That's about it. And it is very good to have someone take the time to present arguments and examples from the real world to back up those warnings.
What I found unsatisfying about the book? His tone. He doth protest too much, repeatedly telling us that he does not have axes to grind, or that he is level-headed, objective, and only strictly presenting the truth. The number of times he bashes Homeopathy and all the idiots who follow it made me want to go out and get a Homeopathy treatment and get better, just to spite him. I did plenty of page flips through sections where he was on a tear, looking for when the vitriol cooled and he would get back to some facts.
He says outright that before 1934 doctors were useless. Wow. For a book that warns against making claims without empirical substantiation, that is a pretty strong statement. He lumps all other forms of medicine, throughout all time, into the useless bucket. And all humanity who has practiced or received medicine before 1934 in the West into the idiot bucket. So I kept waiting for him to balance his rants with the facts about his implicitly superior profession of conventional medicine. He holds up the fact that doctors recently proved that smoking causes most lung cancer (and makes no mention of why this only started happening after WWII.) He implies that antibiotics have saved many lives.
He bravely admits that only 15% of existing conventional medical treatments are based upon statistical evidence that show benefit. Another wow. So what is it exactly that is so superior about our evidence based medicine compared to mumbo-jumbo, voodoo (quoting here) quacks if 85% of our treatments are based upon...nothing?
I do appreciate his attempt to stay focused on the topic of critical thinking, and evidence-based claims. But there is a big gap in the exposition that would justify his self-proclaimed superiority.
--Michael Clarage
I just finished reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre, and it's the most important book I've read in a long time. It's not a thriller, it's a nonfiction work of popular science. But that description doesn't do this book justice. Bad Science has the power to change the world (for the better), if people would read it carefully and with an open mind. It rails against the anti-science winds sweeping our culture, and more importantly, empowers ordinary people of reasonable intelligence to think like scientists and protect themselves from so much unscientific claptrap dressed up as science that is for sale, is on the Internet, and even in respectable media such as newspapers.
In fact, I believe Bad Science should be a mandatory part of all high school science curricula, or at the very least, required reading for all medical students (who in my experience are as vulnerable to pseudoscience as other people). Heck, whoever you are, if you haven't read this book, you need to.
Ben Goldacre is a brainy muckraker who, with acerbic wit and unassailable accuracy, attacks anti-scientific BS and clearly explains how it cloaks itself in a scientific aura, and how it's wrong. The beautiful thing is, you don't have to be a scientist or even a particularly scientifically literate person to understand. Anybody with a brain can detect BS if given the proper tools.
Goldacre's targets cover the spectrum from "quacks, hacks" to "big pharma flacks". He lays bare the alternative realities in which live detox treatments, ear candling, anti-aging cosmetics, homeopathy, diet experts, antioxidants, pharmaceutical companies with large advertising budgets, vaccine opponents, and most frightening of all, people who oppose antiretroviral therapy for AIDS and argue that HIV does not cause this disease.
In my opinion, the author is utterly fair in his arguments. But he is not always nice. (Is there a reason why he should be?) Ben Goldacre is my new hero, slaying dragons of ignorance and going head-to-head in intellectual combat with some of the most hysterically irrational elements in society today.
Along the way as you read this entertaining book, you'll learn what you need to know about clinical trials, about the power and limitations of statistics, and about how to think critically, to become a little Ben Goldacre yourself.
My favorite quote from the book is one of the best science quotes of all time:
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
The attacks on fraudulent and dubious claims about vitamins, drugs, miracle cures, etc., are on target, but they get a little tedious by the end. As a collection of newspaper columns, the book is fine, but the exposition of EBM, meta-analysis, clinical trials, etc., is not especially thorough or memorable.
Despite its rather broad-sounding title, the "bad science" is really science associated with the health, nutrition and medical fields. The author, a physician and strong advocate of evidence-based medicine, guides the reader through what constitutes careful research and diligent analysis and interpretation of results. He points out the many pitfalls that even the most conscientious researchers can unwittingly fall into. But mainly he also discusses various tricks that less than honest researchers - those usually with a vested interest in some specific outcome of the experiments/research (e.g., some alternative medicine practitioners, some pharmaceutical companies, some nutritionists, even some physicians, etc.) - will use to promote their ideologies, products, etc., even when these have been proven worthless by honest, careful researchers. Carl Sagan's view that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" features prominently throughout this book.
This author is not afraid to express his views - especially when sloppy research and/or dishonesty is involved. His prose is quite lively, authoritative, friendly, often witty and fast-paced. Anyone interested in the use and abuse of science should thoroughly enjoy this book.
In some sense this book is more about the importance of the free press than "bad science". Chapter 10 did not appear in the original version of the book because Goldacre was being sued for libel at the time; while its publication is vindication, one can imagine that others without Goldacre's tenacity and backing would have given up. While media's misrepresentation bears the brunt of Goldacre's wrath throughout the book, that the book ended up on many "best of the year" lists indicates that there are two sides to this story, and there is good and bad media just like good and bad science (but you knew that). Goldacre's book is really aimed at journalists - if those covering science and health issues would read this and take it to heart, we might all be better off. (On the other hand, I think that it's likely that those enlightened journalists would just be replaced, as their publishers are mainly interested in making sales. Goldacre points out that the status quo is not to have true science journalists cover "big" science/health stories, because they tend to drain the sensational and erroneous b.s. out of them.)
Aside from all that, for the rest of us it's still a very worthwhile read, because we can never hear too many times that we should use the scientific method and embrace evidence-based medicine, and we rarely hear it in a voice as entertaining as Goldacre's. Like some of the less-favorable reviews point out, the book is a bit repetitive and shrill at times (Goldacre seems to have a particular ax to grind with yuppies with humanities backgrounds), and very Brit-centric, so some might say five stars is a stretch. If the subject matter were less important I'd probably agree, but taken as a whole package the combination of importance and readability makes it a standout. Strongly recommended.
This is a good book, and a good debunking of much "sciency" stuff that tries to masquerade itself as "scientifically proven." And which sadly apparently intelligent people fall into believing.
It particularly skewers homeopathy, nutritionists, Gillian McKeith, Patrick Holford and Matthias Rath. It then skewers Big Pharma for the incompleteness of the evidence it presents to doctors who then are then prescribing medicines with only part of the picture about their good and bad points. He's superb at skewering the scientific record, and its deliberately created gaps (unreported negative studies, company suppression of critical papers etc.) He's good at skewering the newspapers and TV journalists for their distortion of scientific evidence, and their inability to understand what they are reporting on, and their higher level ignorance that there's even a problem needing sorted here.
In other words this is a good book on our cognitive failings (as is Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error), and how easily we are being misled.
I cannot help but feel that Goldacre comes over as an intellectual Roundhead. In 1066 & All That: 75th Anniversary Edition (Methuen Humour) the authors summarise the English Civil War as being between the Roundheads who are "right, but repulsive" and the Cavaliers who are "wrong, but romantic." In this I suspect that Goldacre is an example of the problems experts have at present- namely that, for an example, in the media a man with a lab in his garden shed can be held up as an equal expert to a professor in a large department in a well established university. This is roughly as silly as equating an amateur footballer with David Beckham. Yet it happened over the MRSA scare (Chapter 15 of the book). Meanwhile romantic and free floating pseudo-experts float pretty, "sciency" but wrong explanations throughout the world with the aid of much marketing, little true research and less ethics.
I think Goldacre uses reason well in this book, and it is a necessary enterprise and corrective. Whether people will thank him for it, or prefer the false alternatives remains to be seen.
But this is a good book and the targets he skewers fully deserve their skewering.