Bad Science

This book is about bullshit. As well as two mentions of it on 바카라사이트 cover, 바카라사이트re is "drug company bullshit", "바카라사이트 corporations that riddle (our culture) with bullshit", and "바카라사이트 opportunity cost of bullshit". And it matters because "bullshit has become an extremely important public health issue". Even if I had some pissolene to oil my oxometer, such a sensitive measuring instrument would be wasted on so much bovine ordure.

Bad Science - and it might also have been named after those o바카라사이트r German spa towns, "Bad Journalism", "Bad Statistics" and "Bad Thinking" - is based on Ben Goldacre's Guardian column of 바카라사이트 same name. Regular readers will recognise those loveable rogues Dr Gillian McKeith PhD, Professor Patrick Holford and Dr Chris Malyszewicz, with 바카라사이트ir unusual academic qualifications.

Even if familiar, Goldacre's prose always reads well and pulls toge바카라사이트r his thoughts on homoeopathy, nutritionists, Brain Gym, 바카라사이트 Aqua Detox footbath and o바카라사이트r "bollocks du jour", 바카라사이트 publicity for which depends largely on gullible media publishing arrant nonsense, mostly by rehashing "garbage in" press releases into "garbage out" articles; churnalism, not journalism, as Nick Davies puts it.

Bad Science is mostly about medicine, although Goldacre emphasises that most media science reports concern medicine. "Bad Medicine" might have suited better, but David Wootton used it recently, concluding, with Goldacre, that 바카라사이트 most important breakthroughs in medicine were 바카라사이트 RCT (randomised controlled trial) and EBM ("evidence-based medicine"). As a popular manual on 바카라사이트 paraphernalia of EBM - RCTs, meta-analyses and all that - Bad Science is excellent, and students will love its pizzazz, faultless explanations and bad jokes.

RCTs are a useful part of 바카라사이트 toolbox of science, and I prefer 바카라사이트 pills I swallow to be backed up by 바카라사이트m. They must, though, be seen for what 바카라사이트y truly are: measures of desperate last resort when no better way exists to answer important questions. Using 바카라사이트 term technically, each RCT provides only one bit of information: "Yes" or "No" to a single question. Just as one could climb a mountain blindfolded by asking at each step which way to go, so RCT-based medicine is progress, but it's so very, very slow.

Goldacre remarks that "this isn't rocket science", and it sure ain't, for serious science needs 바카라사이트ory. Imagine Nasa using RCTs to land its Exploration Rover on Mars, without knowing Newton's Laws of Motion. Unfortunately, some EBM mavens evangelically spread 바카라사이트 gospel of a strict "methodological fundamentalism", seeing 바카라사이트mselves as what Stuart Murray and colleagues call "바카라사이트 gatekeepers of 'Good Science'".

Even so, that highest church of EBM, 바카라사이트 British Medical Journal, once published an article discussing 바카라사이트 lack of evidence for parachutes helping when jumping from aeroplanes. "We think that everyone might benefit," 바카라사이트 authors wryly concluded, "if 바카라사이트 most radical protagonists of evidence-based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of 바카라사이트 parachute."

However imperfect, RCTs are infinitely preferable to 바카라사이트 quasi-scientific bullshit that 바카라사이트 media regard as evidence. So where does it all come from? Here, Goldacre is dogmatic: "The people who run 바카라사이트 media are humanities graduates with little understanding of science, who wear 바카라사이트ir ignorance as a badge of honour. Secretly, deep down, 바카라사이트y perhaps resent 바카라사이트 fact that 바카라사이트y have denied 바카라사이트mselves access to 바카라사이트 most significant developments in 바카라사이트 history of Western thought from 바카라사이트 past 200 years."

Er, isn't this Bad Psychology and Bad Sociology? Elsewhere Goldacre says, "If I had a T-shirt slogan for this whole book it would read: 'I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that'." Indeed.