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A review by mollyzor
Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks by Ben Goldacre
4.0
I liked this book, although I'm still not sure if I would have liked it more or less if I was not a scientist. I found myself going back and forth between "Yes! Yes! True! So true! Thanks for saying that out loud" to "OMG. Why are you repeating this?!? I know this already." I assume that if I was not a scientist I probably wouldn't have had the same reaction.
"Have you ever wondered how one day the media can assert that alcohol is bad for us and the next unashamedly run a story touting the benefits of daily alcohol consumption? Or how a drug that is pulled off the market for causing heart attacks ever got approved in the first place? How can average readers, who aren’t medical doctors or Ph.D.s in biochemistry, tell what they should be paying attention to and what’s, well, just more bullshit?"
-written on the back of the book
I don't know if I was quite the audience (since I'm shooting for that thus far elusive goal of a PhD in biochemistry...) for this book but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It's a little scary how people don't know how to think scientifically (or even logically really) about things. The fact that a lot of people don't even know how to go about finding the original articles scientific studies are published in is a little unnerving (granted with the process the way it is, even if they could find the papers, they probably wouldn't be able to access them...unless they were willing to pay a lot of money...just another thing I think is messed up about science in general).
This book brought a lot of my fears to the forefront. People forget to think for themselves. I don't know if it because they get caught up in the media storm, if they don't want to, or if they really are that immune to scientific evidence. It's a scary thought. And when it goes from harmless to harmful (not just to a single person, but the community at large) it gets even more scary (the MMR vaccine or the anti-HIV people in South Africa to name a few).
Unfortunately, I don't think this book is really going to change anyone's minds. Because that's one thing about human beings...we tend to make up our minds and stick stubbornly to it...even if the evidence is against us...even if our worldview comes crashing down around us. I hope that it did reach a few people. But what I've gained from reading this book, is that I, as a scientist, have a job to teach people around me about the scientific method, to teach them how research is done, to help them understand good and bad research (and that it isn't always black and white on which is which). Not everyone spends 5 years in grad school learning "how to think" so those of us who do should try to pass it along. Who knows, maybe someone will listen.
"Have you ever wondered how one day the media can assert that alcohol is bad for us and the next unashamedly run a story touting the benefits of daily alcohol consumption? Or how a drug that is pulled off the market for causing heart attacks ever got approved in the first place? How can average readers, who aren’t medical doctors or Ph.D.s in biochemistry, tell what they should be paying attention to and what’s, well, just more bullshit?"
-written on the back of the book
I don't know if I was quite the audience (since I'm shooting for that thus far elusive goal of a PhD in biochemistry...) for this book but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It's a little scary how people don't know how to think scientifically (or even logically really) about things. The fact that a lot of people don't even know how to go about finding the original articles scientific studies are published in is a little unnerving (granted with the process the way it is, even if they could find the papers, they probably wouldn't be able to access them...unless they were willing to pay a lot of money...just another thing I think is messed up about science in general).
This book brought a lot of my fears to the forefront. People forget to think for themselves. I don't know if it because they get caught up in the media storm, if they don't want to, or if they really are that immune to scientific evidence. It's a scary thought. And when it goes from harmless to harmful (not just to a single person, but the community at large) it gets even more scary (the MMR vaccine or the anti-HIV people in South Africa to name a few).
Unfortunately, I don't think this book is really going to change anyone's minds. Because that's one thing about human beings...we tend to make up our minds and stick stubbornly to it...even if the evidence is against us...even if our worldview comes crashing down around us. I hope that it did reach a few people. But what I've gained from reading this book, is that I, as a scientist, have a job to teach people around me about the scientific method, to teach them how research is done, to help them understand good and bad research (and that it isn't always black and white on which is which). Not everyone spends 5 years in grad school learning "how to think" so those of us who do should try to pass it along. Who knows, maybe someone will listen.