Ben Goldacre's Blog, page 9

Here’s our Cabinet Office paper on randomised trials of government policies. Read it.

I’ve spent a lot of time arguing that government should be more evidence based, and that wherever possible, we should do randomised trials to find out which policy intervention works best. We often have no idea whether the things we do in government actually work or not, and achieve their stated goals. This is a [...]

Is this the worst government statistic ever created?

I forgot to post this column up last year. It’s a fun one: the Department for Communities and Local Government have produced a truly farcical piece of evidence, and promoted it very hard, claiming it as good stats. I noticed the column was missing today, because Private Eye have published on the same report in [...]

Is there statistical evidence of fraud in the Russian election data?

James Ball sent me the data for the Russian election vote counts this morning and asked me to test whether it deviates from Benford's law, a test that can give a hint at whether numbers are the product of fraud. Posted below is my analysis, and also a check for last digit preference, which is [...]

The golden arse beam method.

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 9 July 2011 Since I was a teenager, whenever I have a pivotal life event coming – an exam, or an interview – I perform a ritual. I sit cross-legged on the floor, and I imagine an enormous golden beam of energy coming out of my arse. I picture this anal [...]

These Guardian / Independent stories are dodgy. Traps in data journalism.

Here's an interesting problem with data analysis in general, and so, by extension, data journalism: you have to be careful about assuming that the numbers you've got access to… really do reflect the underlying phenomena you're trying to investigate. Today's Guardian has a story, "Antidepressant use in England soars". It's much more overstated in the [...]

"Bad Science" is £2.49 on Kindle for the next week

Briefly: I thought this was a pricing error, but it turns out it's deliberate, so… My book is £2.49 on Kindle for the next week or so. When it's this cheap you might as well use it to test the Kindle app on your phone (I'm a massive Kindle dork, it helps me get more [...]

“Bad Science” is £2.49 on Kindle for the next week

Briefly: I thought this was a pricing error, but it turns out it’s deliberate, so… My book is £2.49 on Kindle for the next week or so. When it’s this cheap you might as well use it to test the Kindle app on your phone (I’m a massive Kindle dork, it helps me get more [...]

Why won't Professor Susan Greenfield publish this theory in a scientific journal?

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 22 October 2011 This week Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, apparently announced that computer games are causing dementia in children. This would be very concerning scientific information: but it comes to us from the opening of a new wing at an expensive boarding school, not an academic [...]

Why won't Professor Greenfield publish this theory in a scientific journal?

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 22 October 2011 This week Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, apparently announced that computer games are causing dementia in children. This would be very concerning scientific information: but it comes to us from the opening of a new wing at an expensive boarding school, not an academic [...]

Why won’t Professor Susan Greenfield publish this theory in a scientific journal?

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 22 October 2011 This week Baroness Susan Greenfield, Professor of pharmacology at Oxford, apparently announced that computer games are causing dementia in children. This would be very concerning scientific information: but it comes to us from the opening of a new wing at an expensive boarding school, not an academic [...]