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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
Once you settle in for a bit of snark this is excellent. Things I learned:
- most moisturising creams do the same thing
- antioxidants are probably not really a thing in foods (although Goldacre goes from "the jury's out on this" to "fairytale" in the space of two pages for no apparent reason)
- The Cochrane Collaboration logo is Awesome. Look it up.
- most moisturising creams do the same thing
- antioxidants are probably not really a thing in foods (although Goldacre goes from "the jury's out on this" to "fairytale" in the space of two pages for no apparent reason)
- The Cochrane Collaboration logo is Awesome. Look it up.
Great book. Going to look up everything he's written. Laugh out loud funny, in places.
challenging
informative
I tried to listen to this with my husband on our road trip, but it felt like the author droned on about the same subject, repeating the same point over and over. The narration was as monotonous as the subject matter. Perhaps this one would have been better to read with eyes vs ears. Got a little more than halfway through before bailing for something less tedious. DNF
I'm a fan of Ben Goldacre. I've heard him interviewed on a number of podcasts and he's always interesting and makes great points. I just did not connect at all with this audiobook, however. I was very familiar with most of the subject matter, as much of the material has been covered in depth on the podcast The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. The book felt like a review and a lot of rehash.
The book attacks medical quackery, homeopathy, nutritionists, anti-vaxxers, and several other health-related and anti-science topics. A couple chapters I found interesting were about Brain Gym and statistics manipulation. Brain Gym is a brain training company which is apparently a bigger deal in the UK (I've never even heard of it) which Goldacre claims is bad science and he takes it down in a big way. The Andrew Wakefield / MMR vaccine scare is covered in depth in this book. The author does a great job presenting his case against lousy science in a concise and sometimes funny way.
Despite my rating, I would recommend this book for anyone looking to become more proficient in seeing through anti-science claims and recognizing scams and pseudoscience. If this subject matter is new to you, you will probably find this book enlightening. It was written in 2012 and the message is as important now as it was then. Maybe more so, actually.
The book attacks medical quackery, homeopathy, nutritionists, anti-vaxxers, and several other health-related and anti-science topics. A couple chapters I found interesting were about Brain Gym and statistics manipulation. Brain Gym is a brain training company which is apparently a bigger deal in the UK (I've never even heard of it) which Goldacre claims is bad science and he takes it down in a big way. The Andrew Wakefield / MMR vaccine scare is covered in depth in this book. The author does a great job presenting his case against lousy science in a concise and sometimes funny way.
Despite my rating, I would recommend this book for anyone looking to become more proficient in seeing through anti-science claims and recognizing scams and pseudoscience. If this subject matter is new to you, you will probably find this book enlightening. It was written in 2012 and the message is as important now as it was then. Maybe more so, actually.
I get that science can be intimidating for those who haven't studied it, and it is easy to accept the science reporting you see at face value. Dr. Ben Goldacre writes the Bad Science column in The Guardian, and in this book he uses snark to explain how to spot quackery and bullshit, and how to understand science and statistics. He also picks apart some popular media panics and panaceas: the 'omega-3s make one smart' scam, the ridiculousness that is homeopathy, and the inept fraudsters that sparked the 'vaccines cause autism' panic. I loved this book but I admit he's preaching to the choir. I would like people that believe in bad science to read it and learn to think more critically but I fear they might feel bullied and put it down. I like it though!
This is a surprisingly difficult book to review as on one hand Goldacre has a point in that much of the science coverage we get in the media is questionable at best and a lot of the experts in non-science fields, particularly homeopathy and other alternative medicines have a tendacy to use science to back up their claims and beliefs when its not entirely appropriate. On the other hand these alternatives do have a place for many people, as do many other things, although they shouldn't be treated as a science by those who teach it, practice it or believe in it (which is the main problem raised by Goldacre when discussing them). On the whole I do agree with Goldacre and as a scientist I frequently dispair at the coverage afforded science in the media and how it is treated as a big complex secret when really it isn't. I also cringe at how non-science subjects are treated the same as science, and frequently found myself dispairing at the examples used by Goldacre to show how science and these alternatives differ and the importance of these difference and in making these widely known and properly covered. Yes he does have a certain head-tilting aw-bless-ya view of alternatives but this is bred from the treatment of these as science by the media and those who actually work in those industries when in reality they are not. Yes they do have a place in the world, just not so much in the science world. I did enjoy the humour of Goldacre's writing but I sense this could alienate some people who don't take such things well and struggle to see his main arguement, which is that some things are just not science, no matter how much they want to be.
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Like a lot of books of this genre, it could have been a fraction of the size and still got its points across.
For example homeopathy is pure quackery, people involved are, unsurprisingly, not interested in fair trials, since their livelihood depends on it. That's about it, but he manages to pad this out to nearly 40 pages.
For most chapters you will get his point after the first few pages, but you'll have to endure page after page after page of examples.
He writes with a kind of incredulity that people don't tell the truth, that pharma companies fudge trials, that the media perpetuates lies. They all make a living by doing this, so I'm not remotely incredulous.
I read this in 2022, so debunking Gillian McKeith was something I'm not really interested in.
I'm amongst the pages of fluff, he talks about some interesting topics. I think the placebo effect is fascinating and so does he.
It's not a bad book, overly wordy and a bit dated.
For example homeopathy is pure quackery, people involved are, unsurprisingly, not interested in fair trials, since their livelihood depends on it. That's about it, but he manages to pad this out to nearly 40 pages.
For most chapters you will get his point after the first few pages, but you'll have to endure page after page after page of examples.
He writes with a kind of incredulity that people don't tell the truth, that pharma companies fudge trials, that the media perpetuates lies. They all make a living by doing this, so I'm not remotely incredulous.
I read this in 2022, so debunking Gillian McKeith was something I'm not really interested in.
I'm amongst the pages of fluff, he talks about some interesting topics. I think the placebo effect is fascinating and so does he.
It's not a bad book, overly wordy and a bit dated.