A Bunch Of Faerie Gangsters

December 24th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science | 16 Comments »

No column in the paper on Christmas Eve, so instead I’ve recorded a very special “Song For Christmas”. It’s about alternative therapists and you can play it here:

www.badscience.net/music/fairy%20gangsters-01.mp3

That’s “shen disturbance” in the second verse, in case you can’t quite follow the lyrical content.

Little Atoms on Resonance FM

December 22nd, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, onanism | 8 Comments »

For anyone who’s around there is, unimaginably, a whole hour of me ranting with the presenters of “Little Atoms” tomorrow afternoon at 4:30 on Resonance FM. Little Atoms is a totally excellent post-enlightenment chat show and the audio is archived here. Checking out their archive I can’t help noticing that most of the other people are rather more glamorous than I am: the Jon Ronson interview is particularly good.

For those who don’t know, Resonance is 104.4 FM in Central London, or broadcast live online, and is of course London’s foremost legal avant arts radio station.

Trivial Disputes

December 17th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, chocolate, mail, references, statistics | 26 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday December 17, 2005
The Guardian

Christmas is a time for pedantic family disputes, and newspaper stories about how alcohol and chocolate are good for you. Imagine, if you can, how Christmassy life would be if we could combine these two elements.

This week, the Daily Mail reported on Read the rest of this entry »

You and Yours Radio 4 Friday

December 15th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, bbc, homeopathy, onanism, references, statistics | 95 Comments »

I just said this on Radio 4, Homeopath David Spence responds on the show afterwards.

You’ll be able to listen to it again over the internet from 3pm:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/01/2005_50_fri.shtml

Homeopathy is certainly popular, and I have no problem with Read the rest of this entry »

Just Keep Wearing The Tinfoil Hats

December 10th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, cash-for-"stories", magnets, statistics, very basic science | 28 Comments »

Ben Goldacre

Saturday December 10, 2005

The Guardian

The reason that I am so fabulously wealthy (girls) is, of course, that I am paid by the government and the pharmaceutical industry to rubbish alternative therapies and MMR conspiracy theorists, and thusly maintain what you clever humanities graduates like to call “the hegemony”. Read the rest of this entry »

What is science? First, magnetise your wine …

December 3rd, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in adverts, bad science, magnets, very basic science | 72 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday December 3, 2005
The Guardian

People often ask me [pulls pensively on pipe] “what is science?” And I reply thusly: science is Read the rest of this entry »