Jesus Christ, Read the rest of this entry »
More free energy now.
Ben Goldacre
The Guardian
Saturday November 10 2007
When it comes to creating energy you can’t make something out of nothing, says the BBC newsreader, from behind the very important desk… “Until now. Because British scientists seem to have turned this fundamental law of physics upside down.” The Mail on Sunday loved it even more. “Amazing British invention creates MORE energy than you put into it – and could soon be warming your home,” it said. Taste the excitement. “It violates almost every known law of physics.” That’ll teach those so-called scientists a lesson.
Even… more… ludicrous teleology from evolutionary psychologists
If academic funding was determined by newspaper coverage we would never research anything but MMR and evolutionary psychology.
Which is fine. Read the rest of this entry »
The Amazing Qlink Science Pedant
Ben Goldacre
Saturday May 19, 2007
The Guardian
Normally I’d ignore quack medical devices, but when the catalogue from Health Products For Life – run by vitamin pill salesman Patrick Holford – arrived, I found an unexpected treat waiting for me. Among his usual “special formulation” pill-peddling banter, there was the QLink pendant, at just £69.99.
The QLink is a device sold to protect you from those terrifying invisible electromagnetic rays, and cure many ills. “It needs no batteries as it is ‘powered’ by the wearer – the microchip is activated by a copper induction coil which picks up sufficient micro currents from your heart to power the pendant.” Says Holford’s catalogue. According to the manufacturer’s sales banter, it corrects your energy frequencies. Or something.
Read the rest of this entry »
Dore – The Miracle Cure For Dyslexia
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 »
A Quantitative Analysis Of The Frequency With Which One Company Is Promoted, And By Whom, In UK National Newspapers UPDATED 30/9/06
“A Quantitative Analysis Of The Frequency With Which One Company Is Promoted, And By Whom, In UK National Newspapers”
Updated 16th September 2006.
Dr Ben Goldacre (Corresponding Author)
Bad Science Research Institute,
www.badscience.net
ben@badscience.net
Introduction.
Susan Clark is an alternative therapy columnist who recently made a cheeky attack on her critics. It was subsequently noted that she promotes one company, Victoria Health, with some regularity in her writing. There is a large pool of alternative therapy writers in the UK, who all regularly promote specific products and companies. No background data was available on how frequently this one company is promoted in newspapers, and therefore it was impossible to assess whether Clark’s promotion of them represented an anomaly. This brief pilot study was aimed at providing further background data.
Read the rest of this entry »
The Trial That Ate Itself
Ben Goldacre
Saturday September 9, 2006
The Guardian
Fish oil is clearly a matter of huge national importance. Channel 4 and ITV (and the Daily Mail, and the BBC) all report on a plan by education officials in County Durham to give £1 million worth of omega-3 fish oils, to 5,000 children as they approach their GCSE’s, and see how it improves performance.
Contrary to what the pill-peddlers would tell you, the evidence for omega 3 Read the rest of this entry »
It’s in the stars
Ben Goldacre
Saturday September 2, 2006
The Guardian
I see an angry balding premium-rate phoneline multi-millionaire… Of course, Daily Mail astrologer Jonathan Cainer will already have predicted that I was going to write about him here today, so as you read this, I will be chewing my muesli and reading a simultaneous rebuttal to my comments in his own column. Spooky.
The simplest test of any prediction, you might think, is to look back at whether it came true or not, as long as the prediction was precise enough. Phoneline mogul Cainer’s last major coup came Read the rest of this entry »