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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
A pretty interesting book whether you are a scientist or not, especially if you are not. The only reason I am giving 3 instead of 4 stars, is that at places I found it quite repetitive and thus a bit tiring.
interesting book looking at drug trials and marketing behind and how the industry misleads doctors and patients according to ben goldacre in his lastest book
Though there were parts where the writing felt a little weak or unfocused, this book does a really good job of explaining how to look out for poorly run studies and misleading statistics - I’d learned a decent amount of this info during graduate level science courses, but there were still a few tips and tricks that were new to me. It wasn’t quite as entertaining as I was hoping with a title like “Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks,” but for those who want to be better able to understand medical studies and determine whether the results are valid, this is a great read.
Really thought-provoking and more than a little depressing. However, the dry sense of humor made it quite an enjoyable read.
This would make a pretty cool middle school science read. Not designed for middle schoolers, but I think they'd like the tone
Everyone should read the chapter on vaccinations and the MMR vaccine at the very least.
An extension of his blog, this is a collection of basically rants about how science and statistics are abused by a variety of people. It also looks at faulty science behind some nutritionists and some of their dodgy "credentials". His emphasis is on making people question "facts" and double check the evidence.
However, people don't have the time for a lot of this, and when you're offered a glimmer of hope people tend to take it. The placebo effect is explored here and he does admit that it works and works well if people load it with belief, so maybe examining everything doesn't always work as well as it might.
It's a book worth reading, if only to read why he is so virulently opposed to some people's "science", I must admit to having read some of the books involved and having some reservations but it wasn't until I actually read this that I truly realised what was bothering me about them.
This is part of the problem, I do have a background in Science but I really didn't have enough energy or time to really exhaustively research some of the "facts" given to me by some of these writers. The fact that there are people like Ben Goldacre out there help me sort the truth from the fiction.
However, people don't have the time for a lot of this, and when you're offered a glimmer of hope people tend to take it. The placebo effect is explored here and he does admit that it works and works well if people load it with belief, so maybe examining everything doesn't always work as well as it might.
It's a book worth reading, if only to read why he is so virulently opposed to some people's "science", I must admit to having read some of the books involved and having some reservations but it wasn't until I actually read this that I truly realised what was bothering me about them.
This is part of the problem, I do have a background in Science but I really didn't have enough energy or time to really exhaustively research some of the "facts" given to me by some of these writers. The fact that there are people like Ben Goldacre out there help me sort the truth from the fiction.
Two quotes that encapsulate the book for me:
If I had a T-shirt slogan for this whole book, it would be: “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
If I weren’t writing a light and humorous book about science right now, I would descend into gales of rage.
Could have done without the constant digs at the humanities.