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Bad Science | 
| Author: Ben Goldacre
Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £5.70
You Save: £7.29 (56%)
New (26) Used (3) from £5.70
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 36
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.3 x 1.3
ISBN: 0007240198
EAN: 9780007240197
ASIN: 0007240198
Publication Date: September 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
If you feel you're being conned by scare stories . . . . November 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I thought it would be a good idea to have an antidote to all the scare stories we read in the media. I was not disappointed. The descriptions of how trials and research should be done were excellent and easy to read and understand. It really helps to counteract the headlines and shows you how to work out the facts behind the stories. The book is worth its price for the chapter on the placebo effect alone and if you wanted to know what happened to the MMR controversy you can find out in this book. Very interesting reading.
Should be a standard School text book November 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is not just a good read but also a really important subject - dumbing down of media led science reporting. I'll be giving it to some school age students for Christmas to encourage them see how science fact can be spun in papers/TV etc to give sensation led copy. I was lucky: I had an excellent science teacher in school (1970s - 80s) and was inspired to find out the background for myself behind every popular science or medical story. Great book.
Superb - Make sure you read this book October 24, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Bad Science cuts through the spin and misinformation we all read every day in newspapers and see on the TV regarding health issues. Ben explains how the high status given to science has been stolen by a variety of pseudo-scientific concepts like homeopathy and nutritionists. The media is taken to task for its sensation seeking headlines that help to create problems like the recent MMR hoax. Particularly amusing is Ben's explanation of journalist ignorance - "Unskilled and unaware of it". Mainstream medicine is also examined, and the placebo effect explained. Bens style of writing is very clear and easy to follow, at the end of this book you will be well informed about health issues and feel like spreading the truth with a missionary zeal. This is a very important book.
 Yes, but... October 24, 2008
15 out of 47 found this review helpful
A book for cynical critical people, of whom I am one with much sympathy for his mission. After reading it, I feel even more cynical about almost everything I read in the media, but, unfortunately, also about this author. I didn't find it particularly funny, the written style was very clumsy; he came over as just as egotistical as the so-called experts he criticised. And considering he is so critical of others' referencing, it is a pity his is so inconsistent - could he not have used straight Harvard throughout, which is comprehensive and recognisable to most people who have ever had to write an essay?
Pay attention media, the lesson is about to begin October 22, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I bought this book on a whim, but was very glad I did. The style is engaging and the reader is taken through research methodology and statistics in a logical and simple manner, without resorting to equations. The author is obviously passionate about his subject, which occasionally come across as being a little angry (mainly at the media and various quacks, some of whom come in for a lot of stick), but I can forgive him that as I was getting a little angry about how science is presented by the media (being a scientist myself).
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