Ben is a best-selling author, broadcaster, medical doctor and academic who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims from drug companies, newspapers, government reports, PR people and quacks. Unpicking bad science is the best way to explain good science.
“Bad Science” (4th Estate) has sold over 400,000 copies, is published in 18 countries, and reached #1 in the UK paperback non-fiction charts. His book exposing bad behaviour in the pharmaceutical industry will be published in 2012 by 4th Estate.
Ben has written the weekly Bad Science column in the Guardian since 2003. It’s archived on this site along with blogposts, columns for the British Medical Journal, and other writing.
There are lots of clips of Ben on telly here, and a talk at TEDGlobal here. The Placebo Effect is a two-part documentary series he made for BBC Radio 4. The Rise of the Lifestyle Nutritionists is another. He’s appeared on the Today programme lots of times, Any Questions, Newsnight, Start The Week, The Now Show, Loose Ends, PM, Quote Unquote, Watchdog, and various other things. You can find plenty of it if you dig around on the site, along with lectures, podcast interviews, maybe start here.
He has given over 250 talks in the past 5 years, from comedy clubs and music festivals to universities and schools, government departments, and more. You can book him for after dinner speaking by emailing sballard@unitedagents.co.uk.
He’s received lots of awards for writing, and a few honorary doctorates.
This is what Google thinks about him, this is what the blogs say about Bad Science. He was trained in medicine in Oxford and London. You can contact him on ben@badscience.net, he can’t reply to everything, but it does get read.
Ben is 36 and currently works full time as an academic in epidemiology. He does not see private patients.
Twitter:
Agent:
For books and journalism: Sarah Ballard sballard@unitedagents.co.uk
For TV and Radio: Rosemary Scoular (although for quick stuff it might be easier just to email me) rscoular@unitedagents.co.uk
If you need high resolution photos for media please contact lhughesyoung@unitedagents.co.uk
United Agents
12-26 Lexington Street
London, W1F 0LE
t. +44 (0) 20 3214 0800
After dinner speaking and conferences:
Mail:
Dr Ben Goldacre
Bad Science
The Guardian
Kings Place
90 York Way
London N1 9GU
Phone:
If you’ve somehow got my mobile number, you should know that email gets me instantly and faster, ben@badscience.net.
Upcoming Talks:
www.badscience.net/about-dr-ben-goldacre/upcoming-talks-readings-parties/
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/pages/Ben-Goldacre-Bad-Science/26030473910
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Just one thing: I’m an evangelist for good science and am very happy to come and do voluntary sector / educational stuff for free, although writing is really just a hobby, I give dozens of talks like that every year, but I’ve just been doing my tax, looking at travel expenditure, and I reckon I lost over £3,000 last year from giving talks, because I don’t ever manage to fill out those little expenses forms and post them off, because I’m too busy giving more talks for free, in the mess of my life. So I will happily come and give a talk – I consider these things a public duty – but – and you can tell I’m slightly pissed about this right now – only if you will promise to just give me my train and taxi fares, when I arrive, with no mucking about, or else I go to the pub instead. Seriously, some of you have thought this is a joke. It is not. If I have to find an envelope, fill out a form, find your address, write it on the envelope, find a stamp, find the right taxi receipts in the pockets of whatever jacket I was wearing that day, and then the train tickets, and then post them, all to get back the £80 or so that I paid to come to you, to give a talk, then experience demonstrates that I will simply lose thousands, and I already don’t do the things that make money, like readers health advice in glossy mags, so this is becoming a surprisingly serious personal problem. Until some fool decides to give a secretary to a man who looks 14 years old, that’s the deal. No, you can’t book the trains in advance, I probably won’t know what city I’ll be leaving from until that day. I’m genuinely sorry if your administrative systems can’t manage this, what can I say, you’re asking me to take time out of my life to come and do a talk and then you want me to fill out a bunch of forms and envelopes. Seriously, I love giving talks, I’m happy to do it, I am a zealot for evidence based thinking and science, I would take a train to the end of the universe to talk about it, but you guys seriously need to think about reciprocation.
Addendum: Right. Like I said, I’m really happy to speak, but supplemental to the above, I also don’t have time to fill out long registration forms for your conference / festival / departmental visitors, especially not if they’re huge formatted word documents which I have to download, save, open, type into, edit, sign (how?) and then email or (are you serious) post back to you. You don’t need my postcode. If I want you to have my home telephone number I’ll ask you on a date. I don’t get it. Ask me to do a talk. I’ll do a talk. I’m a nerd evangelist. I’d walk to the end of the earth. But send these forms, and I will ignore them. This is to protect you from a very long lecture: people give you their time for free, they spend time preparing, they travel to get to you, they pretend they can work on the train but they know most of the journey will be spent changing on tubes and getting tickets and waiting in Euston, they have busy lives, but they want to help you, and you repay them with a form? A form? Everybody knows that a form is the lowest expression of contempt, you use a form to express the fact that you don’t have time for someone, that your time is more important than theirs, and that’s often true, I’ll fill out a form to get a grant, or a job, or a blood test, but right now, just now, when I’m doing a talk for you, and I was doing it in good spirit, and it was going to be a nice fun thing, right now, you need to fill out my form. I’m writing it now, it will be online soon, and you will be tested on the contents of this paragraph.
Update 2010:
Sorry, the flesh was willing, but this never worked out, the admin and travel has got too complicated and time consuming, and I was never able to work in a cramped train seat as much as I thought I would be able to. If I manage to organise someone to do admin for me I’ll be able to start doing dozens of free evangelonerdy talks again. Really sorry, I’m not really a writer, it’s a hobby that fits in around the other things I do, and I’m not a senior honcho with a secretary, I’m just some guy. Lots of other exciting public engagement stuff coming, watch the blog!
