Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (2008)

Read: August 2011

I think I picked this book up from a science teacher friend as he was leaving Egypt and thought it looked a good enough read. When we lived (and worked) in Cam I used to go and buy half a dozen ‘popular science’ books at the start of each term trying to get the most out of having a student discount. This book would definitely fit into the ‘popular science’ category as it is an accessible science-y read, but on opening it up I found that it was so much more than that.

Ben Goldacre is a journalist (as well as being a qualified doctor and working full-time for the NHS) and his aim in life (and in this book) is to show that a lot of people use “science” in bad ways – they misrepresent studies, make generalised claims, complete poor research, promote flimsy ideas as fact and more. The book covers a number of different stories and examples on this theme, looking at his favourite subjects of Gillian McKeith, MMR, nutritionists and homeopathy as well as using a huge range of smaller studies to back up his claims that a lot of science out there is bad science.

It’s a really compelling read and I really enjoyed it – being all science-y, but also full to logic and reasoning to have someone help explain why these ridiculous stories get into our newspapers and are so quickly purported as fact. I’m actually planning to use some of the material in various chapters to help teach my TOK (Theory of Knowledge) course with examples of how we know in science, maths, emotion, reasoning and instinct. Lots of annotations and turned down corners in this book!