Ben Goldacre's Blog, page 3

Richard Herring Leicester Square Theatre Show, interview, video…

I took great pride in the fact that my book Bad Science was first reviewed by Viz and the British Medical Journal. In that vein, here’s a 90 minute interview I did on stage with comedian Richard Herring in the Leicester Square Theatre. I have bad hair, we cover a lot of dorky material – […]

My BMJ editorial: how can we stop academic press releases misleading the public?

There is an excellent research paper published today in the BMJ, showing that academic press releases routinely exaggerate scientific findings and mislead the public. This is something I’ve often covered. In this story, for example, the BMJ’s own press release about their own paper was hopelessly and entirely misleading. And after this story, featuring a […]

That YouGov parlour game is wrong. This annoys me.

YouGov have produced a fun, popular new parlour game. You give the site the name of a celebrity, author, TV show, pet, activity, or anything; and it gives you a lot more information in return. Essentially: “other things that such a person typically does and likes”. So, the “favourite dishes” of people who read Ben Goldacre books are Vegetarian Thali, […]

Some London talks and events coming up

There are a few London talks and events coming up over the next few weeks, all very different, and more to come around the country soon: Monday 17th Nov – Richard Herring Leicester Square Podcast This show is a great institution: comedian Richard Herring interviews comedians and the occasional nerd in front of a live audience, […]

What should Cochrane do next?

Here’s a talk I did last year that’s just popped up online. The Cochrane Collaboration is a fabulous organisation, producing gold standard “systematic reviews” summarising all the data that’s ever been collected on important questions in medicine. Cochrane have become great by inviting criticism: for example, they run the Silverman Prize, for the best essay or paper pointing […]

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

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 […]

Weirdly long and fun Absolute FM radio interview

Taking epidemiology to the streets: here’s a long, long interview I did last week on Absolute FM (lovely Geoff Lloyd’s lovely Hometime Show). Posting here because it’s unusually good and long for pop media. In between the rock classics, we talk about screening, Ebola, government statistics, and good quality sperm. My lovely new book – I […]

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

Excitement. 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 […]

Teaching science with bad science: resources for teachers

People often wring their hands over how to make science “relevant” to the public, or to young people. For me, this is an open goal: we are constantly barraged with health claims in popular culture, and evidence based medicine is the science of how we know what does good, and what does harm. Every popular claim is an […]

What statins tell us about the mess in evidence based medicine

Sorry to be absent, I’ve about a zillion big things shortly coming to fruition, at which point expect a deluge. Everyone is having kittens about statins and the BMJ at the moment. Here’s what I wrote as a rabid response on the latest BMJ editorial about it, and a disco soundtrack to keep your attention […]