Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks

Have you ever wondered how one day the media can assert that alcohol is bad for us and the next unashamedly run a story touting the benefits of daily alcohol consumption? Or how a drug that is pulled off the market for causing heart attacks ever got approved in the first place? How can average readers, who aren't medical doctors or Ph.D.s in biochemistry, tell what they should be paying attention to and what's, well, just more bullshit?

Ben Goldacre has made a point of exposing quack doctors and nutritionists, bogus credentialing programs, and biased scientific studies. He has also taken the media to task for its willingness to throw facts and proof out the window. But he's not here just to tell you what's wrong. Goldacre is here to teach you how to evaluate placebo effects, double-blind studies, and sample sizes, so that you can recognize bad science when you see it. You're about to feel a whole lot better.

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 10/12/2010
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.61lbs
Size: 8.08h x 5.50w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780865479180


Award: Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/15/2010 pg. 62
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2010
Publishers Weekly 08/23/2010
Library Journal 09/15/2010 pg. 96
Booklist 10/15/2010 pg. 7
Newsweek 11/08/2010 pg. 26

About the Author

Ben Goldacre is a writer, broadcaster, and doctor best known for the Bad Science column in The Guardian. Trained in Oxford and London, with brief forays into academia, Goldacre works full-time for the National Health Service.