Good Grief.
Sporting “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that” from the BadScience classic range (mm must make more t-shirts). I can also inform you, looking at our deservedly rubbish sales figures, that this well-dressed young lady is one of 10 people in the universe to own such a t-shirt. Buy one now, and you have a one in ten chance of appearing in the Daily Mail yourself: that’s science.
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 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.
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.
It’s cold out there, why would you go shopping when you could just click here and have at least a third of your festive gift requirements sorted in five minutes, from the comfort of your very own springy buttock cheeks?
Ben Goldacre
Saturday June 14 2008
The Guardian
Like anyone with any faith in humankind, you rail against the professionalisation of commonsense: because however much the seedier targets of this column might enjoy spending their customers’ money, baubles are impermanent. We’re not interested in consumer issues. The greater crime, by far, is that quacks and miracle cure merchants disempower us; and, moreover, that we love it when they do. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian,
Saturday January 12 2008
So we’re all going to get screened for our health problems, by some geezers who’ve bought a CT scanner and put an advert in the paper maybe, or perhaps off Gordon Brown: because screening saves lives, and it’s always good to do something rather than nothing. I think you’ll find – and I fancy having this on a t-shirt – that it’s a tiny bit more complicated than that. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Goldacre
Saturday February 24, 2007
The Guardian
It’s hard to know how you’d react in a crisis, Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s an mp3 of my talk today at the Brighton Science Festival, hundreds of people in a massive room, unexpectedly, but only very slightly intimidating:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Or a download here…
That mobile phone noise stops whining a few minutes in, I’ve chopped the beginning off for now, if it’s irritating you then clickety click, Read the rest of this entry »
The Bad Science T-Shirt Shop
For all your MMR-defending nutritionist-bashing rational-empiricist post-enlightenment fashion requirements, and at very reasonable prices. Including the “MMR is safe ~ tell your friends” range, perfect for parents’ evenings, barbecues, dinner parties, and street fighting.
or the bespoke version…
Exploit the power of the mind-body connection while your consciousness isn’t looking. These Placebo tablets come in blisterpacks of 12, in their own Bad Science approved Placebo packaging. This medication has been proven effective in more clinical trials than any other. Rebrand the pills and imbue them with cultural meaning to your own nefarious ends. A limited edition of 100 packets. Placebo: because a doctor gave it to you. A limited edition which has, to my complete astonishment, sold out.
Coming soon…
The Bad Science Amazon Store is an incredibly exciting opportunity for me to make money out of your innate desire to consume knowledge. There’s an expanding list of excellent books, click here and help me pay my webhosting fees:
It looks a bit like this…
Ben Goldacre
Thursday September 30, 2004
The Guardian
· I once saw a bloke at the opening of a Jackson Pollock exhibition in the Tate, wearing a T-shirt that said: “my cat could do better”. What, you may be wondering, has that got to do with Dr Gillian McKeith (PhD)? Well now. Besides her PhD, which we have already discussed, there were a few other interesting entries on her CV. For example, she is proud to announce under “Professional Associations” that she is a certified member of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants (AANC), which certainly sounds impressive. I bet you get a little certificate and everything.
· In fact, I know you get a certificate, because I’m holding it in my hand right now. It’s in the name of my cat, Henrietta. I got it in return for $60, and it’s a particular honour since dear, sweet, little Hettie died about a year ago. So, coming in a bit cheaper than Gillian’s non-accredited correspondence course PhD and Masters degrees (although she will have got a discount from “Clayton College of Natural Health” if she ordered them both at once), it looks as if all you need to be a certified member of the AANC is a name, an address, and a spare $60. You don’t need to be human. You don’t even need to be alive. No exam. No check-up on your qualifications. And no assessment of your practice. I guess that could be embarrassing for some of their certified professional members. Presumably, the diploma is there to certify that you have $60.
· If you know anyone else who is showing off about being a Professional Certified Member of the AANC, I’d like to hear about it. The only one I can find so far is a man called Dr Bannock who presented Why Weight on Channel 4 and Fat Academy on Discovery. No, I’d never heard of him either. He says he is a “Member of the American Association of Nutrition Consultants (Board Certified Nutrition Consultant)”. Glad you added that bit at the end, Dr Bannock. His website mentions his PhD in Nutritional Physiology, but he doesn’t say where it’s from; his website also features the odd photograph of a stethoscope, although to my disappointment, unlike Hettie, he’s not gone as far as dressing up in it endearingly.
· But back to the money: if anybody wants nutritional advice from the decomposing corpse of my ex-cat, I shall be setting up a small shrine at the bottom of the garden, where you can leave chewed mice, ready cash, and offers of a primetime TV series on Channel 4.
