Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (Book) £6.49 at Waterstones - List price: £12.99
Not a crazy bargain but might tempt a few.
Same price at Amazon but no Quidco (8%)
Heard great things about this book.
I enjoy reading his Guardian columns too.
Jacket review
'The most important book you'll read this year, and quite possibly the funniest.' Charlie Brooker 'Bad Science inroduces the basic scientific principles to help everyone to become an effective bullshit detector.' Sir Iain Chalmers, Founder of the Cochrane Library
Synopsis
Full of spleen, this will be a hilarious, invigorating and informative journey through the world of Bad Science. How do we know if a treatment works, or if something causes cancer? Can the claims of homeopaths ever be as true - or as interesting as the improbable research into the placebo effect? Who created the MMR hoax? Do journalists understand science? Why do we seek scientific explanations for social, personal and political problems? Are alternative therapists and the pharmaceutical companies really so different, or do they just use the same old tricks to sell different types of pill? We are obsessed with our health. And yet - from the media's 'world-expert microbiologist' with a mail-order PhD in his garden shed laboratory, via multiple health scares and miracle cures, to the million pound trial that Durham Council now denies ever existed - we are constantly bombarded with inaccurate, contradictory and sometimes even misleading information. Until now.Ben Goldacre masterfully dismantles the dodgy 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.
All Comments (6)
Jump to unread Post a CommentMystics, homeopathy users, nutritionists beware. He pulls the myths out most of the hocus pocus we are subjected to in the name of 'Bad Science'
To be true science he says it must me subjected to rigorous sytems of proof and repeatable testing otherwise don't believe it.
borrowed it from my library (so it was free!) but no quidco!