My new book is out today. Here is the introduction. Hooray!

October 23rd, 2014 by Ben Goldacre in book, ITYFIABMCTT, onanism | 14 Comments »

whooo wil buuuuy my loverly neeeew boooook whooo wil buuuuy my loverly boooook My new book is out today: a collection of columns, journalism and essays, but also some of my more colourful government reports, academic papers, and more.

It looks lovely.

Here is the introduction.

Hooray!

……  Amazon …………………..

…………………. Audible ………

……….  Waterstones  ……….

….. Kindle   ……………………..

……….   Local  ………………….

…….. Harper Collins  ………..

Introduction

This is a collection of my most fun fights: but the fighting is just an excuse. There’s nothing complicated about science, and people can understand anything, if they’re sufficiently motivated. Coincidentally, people like fights. That’s why I’ve spent the last ten years lashing science to mockery: it’s the cleanest way I know to help people see the joy of statistics, and the fascinating ways that evidence Read the rest of this entry »

I totally just touched my new book: Collected Journalism, out next week!

October 17th, 2014 by Ben Goldacre in book, onanism | 1 Comment »

new coverExcitement.

My new book is out next week.

It’s a collection of journalism, essays, academic papers, government reports (woo!) and other stuff.

It’s called “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that”.

A copy just arrived and it is a beautiful, big, thing.

The content is all completely different to Bad Science and Bad Pharma, with much more focus on bad behaviour by politicians, journalists, and scientists themselves: some golden gassers from yesteryear, some recent stuff, the odd government report, Susan Greenfield, embarrassing juvenilia, that kind of thing. It’s a fun christmas compendium, an epidemiology and research methods toilet book, if you will. I’ll post the intro and other bits to the blog next week, setting out the shape.

For now: I AM EXCITED TO TOUCH MY BOOK.

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Pre-orders links below:

……  Amazon  ………………….

………….  Waterstones  ……..

….. Kindle   ……………………..

……….   Local  ………………….

…….. Harper Collins  ………..

 

Longstanding readers might remember “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that” was a Bad Science t-shirt about 800 million years ago. I’ve just had a look, and these are somehow still available, through an endearing Web 1.0 interface. Their true power is unleashed when you sidle over and stand next to other people wearing slogan t-shirts, for covert photos. “Drop beats not bombs”. “I need a hug”. That kind of thing. This joke took time to grow old. Your mileage may vary.

Here is a picture of someone wearing one on the pages of the Daily Mail, in an article about the evils of Atheist Summer Camp. This is almost as good as when the “MMR is safe, tell your friends” baby bib went on display in the Science Museum.

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New super cheap edition of Bad Pharma, with extra chapter, and: Waterstones Book Club!

October 3rd, 2013 by Ben Goldacre in alltrials campaign, badpharma, book | 5 Comments »

newbook

RIGHT. Sorry to be absent, I’m back from outer space.

NOW. There’s a new cheap edition of Bad Pharma out this month, with a new and very long extra chapter on everything that’s happened since the first edition came out. There are goodies and baddies galore, I’ll be writing about it all over the next few weeks, but if you’re impatient, there’s lots on the AllTrials website already.

Before that, Bad Pharma is Waterstones Book Club “Book of the Week“. This means it’s discounted, and out on the tables in Waterstones. More importantly, there’s a podcast discussion, and a book club reading guide. These are often great fun, and it’s worth checking out some of the others: they give suggested discussion points, this one has a piece by me on why I wrote the book, and how medical leaders have failed to address the problem of missing trials.

They also asked me to write about how I write, so there’s a splurge at the end about the huge synchronising data monster I’ve built to hoover up and organise knowledge. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

The reading guide is here:

www.waterstones.com/wat/images/special/pdf/9780007498086_reading_guide.pdf

You can buy the new super cheap edition of Bad Pharma here:

www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/ben+goldacre/bad+pharma/9640023/

There’s a Waterstones book club podcast on Bad Pharma here:

blog.waterstones.com/2013/09/book-club-bad-pharma/

And as always: remember to sign up to www.alltrials.net, our campaign to stop clinical trial results being withheld from doctors, patients and researchers. We cannot make informed decisions about which treatment is best, as long as this information is being casually withheld. History shows that quiet backroom activity has failed to fix the problem: loud, public scrutiny is the only hope we have, and that means you.

Onward!

How vaccine scares respect local cultural boundaries.

April 24th, 2013 by Ben Goldacre in africa, bad science, book, MMR | 17 Comments »

I was on Newsnight this evening, discussing the measles outbreak in Swansea, and how we can get people vaccinated with MMR when they’ve previously refused. In my view: prevention is better than cure, it’s hard to reverse a scare story once the toothpaste is out of the tube, and we must innoculate ourselves against future vaccine scares, because they will come. That’s why services like Behind The Headlines are important. Here’s the video:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01s5bn7/Newsnight_24_04_2013/

At the end, Jeremy Paxman seemed (endearingly) amazed to hear that vaccine scares respect local cultural boundaries. Here’s what I was discussing, in an extract from my first book Bad Science (this bit’s from pages 292-4 of the red paperback):

Read the rest of this entry »

Matthias Rath – steal this chapter

April 9th, 2009 by Ben Goldacre in africa, alternative medicine, bad science, BANT, book, death, matthias rath, nutritionists | 129 Comments »

imageThis is the “missing chapter” about vitamin pill salesman Matthias Rath. Sadly I was unable to write about him at the time that book was initially published, as he was suing my ass in the High Court. The chapter is now available in the new paperback edition, and I’ve posted it here for free so that nobody loses out.

Although the publishers make a slightly melodramatic fuss about this in the promo material, it is a very serious story about the dangers of pseudoscience, as I hope you’ll see, and it was also a pretty unpleasant episode, not just for me, but also for the many other people he’s tried to sue, including Medecins Sans Frontieres and more. If you’re ever looking for a warning sign that you’re on the wrong side of an argument, suing Medecins Sans Frontieres is probably a pretty good clue.

Anyway, here it is, please steal it, print it, repost it, whatever, it’s free under a Creative Commons license, details at the end. If you prefer it is available as a PDF here, or as a word document here. Happy Easter!

Read the rest of this entry »

Nice review of my book in the British Medical Journal by Richard Smith

October 7th, 2008 by Ben Goldacre in book, book reviews, onanism | 22 Comments »

Reproduced cheekily below. He’s Arthur Smith‘s brother, don’t you know. Read the rest of this entry »

Generous review of my book in the Daily Telegraph

October 2nd, 2008 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, book, book reviews, onanism, telegraph | 10 Comments »

There’s a very nice review of my book “Bad Science” in the Telegraph this week. I have to say I’m delighted to see that the two newspapers I’ve probably been meanest about over recent years are the two that have reviewed it so far. This betrays a genuinely wholesome grown up approach to life which properly warms the cockles of my heart.

Read the rest of this entry »

Haha w00t I am “Health Book Of The Week” in the Daily Mail

September 30th, 2008 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, book, book reviews, mail, onanism | 26 Comments »

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Ohh look I’m on the One Show on BBC One

September 9th, 2008 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, book, onanism | 45 Comments »

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Slightly tiggerish and lacking in gravitas but that’s roughly what you’d expect from a 12 year old delivering a 100,000 word thesis on mainstream television in 3 minutes.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00dcy6n/

It starts 8 minutes in. As you can see the presenters really engaged with the film, they loved the book, and it triggered a thought-provoking discussion of the issues raised. Read the rest of this entry »