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WillowOne's Positions

Bad Science

Overview

Goldacre, a doctor and the author of the Guardian's "Bad Science" column, takes apart the ways in which science is misrepresented to the public. Chapters cover homeopathy, the detox industry, the nutritionists Gillian McKeith and Patrick Holford, the placebo effect, the pharmaceutical industry's manipulation of trials, the media's handling of the MMR vaccine scare, and the case of Matthias Rath, who sold vitamins as a treatment for AIDS in South Africa and sued Goldacre for saying so. Along the way it is a plain-language course in how to read a clinical trial.

Notes

The most useful book on this list, because it teaches a method rather than a conclusion. After reading it you can look at a health claim and ask the right questions: was there a control group, was it blinded, how big was the sample, who paid, and was the result the one they went looking for. The MMR chapter is the background to my position on the anti-vaccine movement, and the homeopathy chapter to my position on Homeopathy. Goldacre is angrier than Sagan and has better reason to be.

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