Praise for Bad Science

“Ben Goldacre is exasperated . . . He is irked, vexed, bugged, ticked off at sometimes inadvertent (because of stupidity) but more often deliberate deceptions perpetrated in the name of science . . . You’ll get a good grounding in the importance of evidence-based medicine . . . ‘Studies show’ is not good enough, he writes: ‘The plural of “anecdote” is not data.’” —Katherine Bouton, The New York Times

“One of the best books I’ve ever read. It completely changed the way I saw the world. And I actually mean it.” —Tim Harford, author of The Undercover Economist

“Ben Goldacre lucidly, and irreverently, debunks a frightening amount of pseudoscience, from cosmetics to dietary supplements to alternative medicine. If you want to read one book to become a better-informed consumer and citizen, read Bad Science.” —Sandeep Jauhar, author of Intern

“This is a much-needed book. Ben Goldacre shows us—with hysterical wit—how to separate the scam artists from real science. In a world of misinformation, this is a rare gem.” —Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek

“Ben Goldacre uses a brilliant mix of science and wit to challenge and investigate alternative therapists and the big pharmaceutical corporations. Bad Science is an invaluable tool for anybody who wants to protect themselves from the snake-oil salesmen of the twenty-first century.” —Simon Singh, author of Big Bang and Fermat’s Last Theorem

“British physician and journalist Ben Goldacre takes aim at quack doctors, pharmaceutical companies and poorly designed studies in extraordinary fashion in Bad Science . . . Goldacre shines in a chapter about bad scientific studies by writing it from the perspective of a make-believe big pharma researcher who needs to bring a mediocre new drug to market. He explains exactly how to skew the data to show a positive result. ‘I’m so good at this I scare myself,’ he writes. ‘Comes from reading too many rubbish trials.’” —Rachel Saslow, The Washington Post

“Funny and biting . . . While it is a very entertaining book, it also provides important insight into the horrifying outcomes that can result when willful anti-intellectualism is allowed equal footing with scientific methodology.” —Dennis Rosen, The Boston Globe

“I hereby make the heretical argument that it is time to stop cramming kids’ heads with the Krebs cycle, Ohm’s law, and the myriad other facts that constitute today’s science curricula. Instead, what we need to teach is the ability to detect Bad Science—BS, if you will. The reason we do science in the first place is so that ‘our own atomized experiences and prejudices’ don’t mislead us, as Ben Goldacre of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine puts it in his new book, Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks. Understanding what counts as evidence should therefore trump memorizing the structural formulas for alkanes.” —Sharon Begley, Newsweek.com

“Dr. Ben Goldacre’s UK bestseller Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks is finally in print in the USA, and Americans are lucky to have it. Goldacre writes a terrific Guardian column analyzing (and debunking) popular science reporting, and has been a star in the effort to set the record straight on woowoo ‘nutritionists,’ doctors who claim that AIDS can be cured with vitamns, and vaccination/autism scares. Bad Science is more than just a debunking expose (though it’s that): it’s a toolkit for critical thinking, a primer on statistics and valid study design, a guide to meta-analysis and other tools for uncovering and understanding truth . . . The book should be required reading for everyone who cares about health, science, and public policy.” —BoingBoing.net