Not Weird Science - Bad Science (Bad Science - Ben Goldacre)

Member Name: Teena2003

Product:	Bad Science - Ben Goldacre
Date:	21/04/09 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: debunking some of medicine's myths & misinformations, funny read

Disadvantages: man on a mission and with an agenda but who can blame him

Ben Goldacre is the very outspoken mouthpiece against really rubbish claims made by modern medicine or television charlatans. He is a medical doctor and journalist with a column in the Guardian newspaper with an uncanny bullsh*t detector second to none.

I can't remember when I first came across his ways of thinking but it must have been when I was looking for an answer to Gillian McKeith, a woman that makes my neck hair stand on end, someone I find appalling to the n-th degree. Lately I have seen him voice his opinion on London's 6 o'clock news regarding LBC's Jenni Barnett and her rather stupid musings on the MMR back in January and the other week on Watchdog when he was asked what he thought about some modern detox products.

I bought the 'Bad Science' paperback when I was ordering a number of books from Amazon quite a few months back. And for the longest time I had it in the office - working a 9 to 5 job (well, 8.30 to 5.00 in my case) means I have all my internet orders sent to my work address - on my desk to read at lunch time as well as taking it home to read a little more.

Looking at Bad Science

The book is divided into 15 chapters with additional introduction and further reading and glossary at the end. Altogether my paperback version contains just under 340 pages, including glossary and references.

There is no need to read the book page by page or chapter by chapter. Just have a look and read the chapters that interest you more than others and return to the ones you missed at your leisure.


Favourite Bad Science (if there is such a thing)

The first chapter I read in the book was the one entitled 'Dr Gillian McKeith, PhD', mainly because I have a particular dislike of this woman popping up on my TV set when I least expect her (episodes like 'Super skinny v Super fat' for example). While I can avoid her in her own show, it's difficult when she suddenly pops up somewhere else and you didn't expect her.

Reading about Ms McKeith only strengthened my opinion about her, that what she says is total cotswallop and should not be taken seriously at all. Ben Goldacre went as far as to examine her credential (like, none really), her scientific experiments (again, nothing really) and her universal claims to help people. Apart from the obvious "there's one born every minute", there is also the placebo effect. Who knows why people follow her rather dubious advise but sometimes you just need a push in the right direction and she might be the one, whatever her faults are in the long run.

Another favourite chapter was about the recent controversy regarding MRS and autism. While the doctor who came up with the rubbish trials was discredited ages ago, there are still people in the media who are peddling false data that was published at the time. Ben Goldacre examines the continuing misinformation in the media regarding MMR and autism and criticizes those who continue to publish the discredited data and put children's lives at risk instead of setting the record straight.


More Bad Science

As I mentioned before, there is no need to read the book cover to cover, just dip in and out and read the bits you are interested in. Over time I managed to read most chapters.

I now know a lot more about homeopathy, detox products, how statistics can be manipulated to show whatever you want them to show. I am also surprised how much rubbish I believed only because it was in the news, something Ben Goldacre covers in the chapter 'Why Clever People Believe Stupid Things' and 'Bad Stats'.

The book has left me with a much more questioning mind than before and I will not follow the masses and try and make up my own mind.


Cure for all ills?

Bad Science will make you smile, it will make you laugh out loud but it will also make you sit back and think about what you have just read, how easily you are being taken in by false promises, how much you want to believe what the media, your doctor or the latest incarnation of a TV nutritionist tell you.

I have always taken much of homeopathic and alternative medicine with a pinch of salt. I have friends who believe whole heartedly in alternative medicine, that it can help in certain circumstances. But they also accept that conventional medicine has its place when needed. I would never belittle them for what they believe. If it helps to ease the pain or suffering, who am I to criticise?

Ben Goldacre is not without critics. After all, he is a medical doctor telling people to distrust a lot of medical claims, look twice at statistics and question everything they hear and read. His bullsh*t-ometre is on overtime when he sees someone being taken for a ride and he will research and take the person, company or research to pieces if necessary in an often humorous way.

He is a loudmouth with an agenda - an agenda to annoy the perpetrators and inform those willing to open their minds and not believe everything they read or hear but question and research to form their own opinions.


New Bad Science

There is a new version of the paperback out now - with a new cover, a new chapter has been included after Ben Goldacre is now no longer sued by a vitamin pill peddler trying to make his life and that of other critics hell. I read the missing chapter online on Ben's own website where he made it available to anyone who is interested.

Ben Goldacre's official website is http://www.badscience.net/ if you are interested. Check it out.

© Tempus_Fugit/Teena2003

Summary: Medical myths, misinformation and quackery taken to task