Natural History Museum Homeopathy Debate – Booking Now

November 17th, 2006 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, homeopathy | 52 Comments »

I'm talking at this Natural History Museum thing on Thursday 30th Nov at 7pm with Dr Peter Fisher, Clinical Director of the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, bookings on 020 7942 5555, seats going fast…

Should be good fun, at first it was to speak "against" somebody called Dr Marysia Kratimenos, but now they've got Dr Peter Fisher. He is obviously the biggest cheese in Uk homeopathy, a very nice man, a very clever man, a very well informed man, an extremely reasonable man, a man who takes Read the rest of this entry »

Just… Show… Me… The… Data…

November 11th, 2006 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, equazen, fish oil, references, statistics | 190 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday November 11, 2006
The Guardian

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried using the Freedom of Information Act: it’s an excellent trouble making tool, and you do feel quite James Bond, but the act has its flaws. One being that if you ask for too much, as one lone, obsessive, disproportionately pedantic science columnist, they turn you down on grounds of cost. Quite spuriously and unfairly, to my mind. So now I’m offering a kind of skills swap: I’ll teach you all how to do an FoI request (it’s easy) if you help me get a bunch of data. Read the rest of this entry »

Dore – The Miracle Cure For Dyslexia

November 4th, 2006 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, brain gym, dore, mail, mirror, references, space | 71 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday November 4, 2006
The Guardian

Wouldn’t it be great if there really was an expensive proprietary cure for dyslexia? Oh hang on, there is: paint tycoon Wynford Dore has developed one, with NASA space technology. It’s only £1700, it has celebrity endorsements, it involves some special exercises, but it has been proven with experts. “A revolutionary drug-free dyslexia remedy has been hailed a wonder cure by experts,” said the Mirror on Monday, in fact. And in the Mail: “Millions of people with dyslexia have been given hope by a set of simple exercises that experts say can cure the disorder.”

This most recent wave of publicity was prompted by a paper on Dore’s miracle cure published in the academic journal Dyslexia. The story of why they should publish such a flawed study is, perhaps, for another day. But what Read the rest of this entry »

For Those About To Rock…

November 2nd, 2006 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, not bad science | 35 Comments »

Yes! Axe-wielding glam rock astronomy PhD hero Brian May has written a new popular science book on space, time, and the history of the universe, and more than that, he has recorded a soaring multi-tracked guitar solo promo for it with Patrick Moore on drums. Epic genius, play loud:

www.banguniverse.com/sequence

Read the rest of this entry »

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