Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 29 May 2010
This week a man called Martin Gardner died, aged 95. His popular maths column in Scientific American (and 50 books on the subject) spanned the decades, but in 1952 he published a book about pseudoscience, quacks, and credulous journalists. How much do you think has changed over 60 years?
Working on an editorial about the importance of evidence based social policy, I re-discovered this moment of genius from Archie Cochrane which I thought I’d share. It’s 1971, he’s part way through a randomised trial comparing Coronary Care Units against home care, and the time has come to share some results with the cardiologists.
I am not asking you to appreciate the results: this was a long time ago, and the findings will not be generalisable to modern CCU’s.
I am inviting you to appreciate the mischief.
On the birthday of Jesus Christ – who was clearly a very nice guy, giant sky wizard issues aside – I can think of no better bible reading than this, Daniel 1:8, a description of the first ever clinical trial.
UCL have just issued a smashing statement on Prof Colquhoun’s de-excommunication.
www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0706/07061303
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[Update: Letter from Provost below]
Ben Goldacre
Saturday June 9, 2007
The Guardian
I’ve always said you’d get a lot more kids interested in science if you told them it involves fighting – which of course it does. This week, for example, Professor David Colquhoun FRS – one of the most eminent scientists in the UK – has been forced to remove his quackbusting blog from the UCL servers where it has lived for many years, after complaints from disgruntled alternative therapists.
Superlative quackhunting by the formidable (in the french pronunciation of the word) Prof David Colquhoun FRS, chasing down those cheeky scamps from “Stop Snoring”, and their claim-rich TV adverts. They bang on about clinical trials. Colquhoun… finds them and reads them…
www.ucl.ac.uk/Pharmacology/dc-bits/quack.html#snore
Ah me, simple pleasures. It’s amazing how the Read the rest of this entry »
