Just Keep Wearing The Tinfoil Hats

December 10th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, cash-for-"stories", magnets, statistics, very basic science | 28 Comments »

Ben Goldacre

Saturday December 10, 2005

The Guardian

The reason that I am so fabulously wealthy (girls) is, of course, that I am paid by the government and the pharmaceutical industry to rubbish alternative therapies and MMR conspiracy theorists, and thusly maintain what you clever humanities graduates like to call “the hegemony”. Read the rest of this entry »

What is science? First, magnetise your wine …

December 3rd, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in adverts, bad science, magnets, very basic science | 70 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday December 3, 2005
The Guardian

People often ask me [pulls pensively on pipe] “what is science?” And I reply thusly: science is Read the rest of this entry »

How many microbiologists does it take to change a tabloid story?

November 19th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, evening standard, media, MRSA, onanism, PhDs, doctors, and qualifications, scare stories, very basic science | 29 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday November 19, 2005
The Guardian

I realise this is starting to look like some kind of dirty protest, but here is a window on to how the media sees itself in relation to scientific expertise, and how it copes with criticism, which just happens – entirely by coincidence – to involve the MRSA scandal.

To recap: bloke with no microbiology qualifications in unaccredited garden shed “laboratory” finds MRSA on Read the rest of this entry »

Who’s holding the smoking gun on Bioresonance?

November 12th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, bbc, references, very basic science | 170 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday November 12, 2005
The Guardian

I know you’re all looking forward to my fifth consecutive week writing about the tabloid’s favourite MRSA “laboratory”, but my Deep Throat keeps teasing me, so the latest explosion will Read the rest of this entry »

The man behind the Mop of Death

October 22nd, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, mail, media, mirror, MRSA, PhDs, doctors, and qualifications, scare stories, sun, very basic science | 29 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday October 22, 2005
The Guardian

Right. Where were we? Oh yes: there is a small unaccredited laboratory in Northants called Chemsol, run by a man with a non-accredited correspondence-course PhD and no formal microbiology training, and he seems to find MRSA in hospitals where other accredited labs, in universities and the like, cannot. And, weirdly, almost every undercover tabloid Read the rest of this entry »

Tangled Webs

October 2nd, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, bbc, magnets, PhDs, doctors, and qualifications, references, very basic science | 46 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday October 1, 2005
The Guardian

The plot around a BBC online health correspondent gets thicker. Last week, you will recall, we were pondering the ethics and wisdom of Jacqueline Young dishing out preposterous, made-up, pseudoscientific Read the rest of this entry »

Imploding Researchers

September 24th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, magnets, PhDs, doctors, and qualifications, very basic science, water | 31 Comments »

The Guardian | Saturday September 24 2005
Ben Goldacre
The au pair said something very funny about my dinner parties the other day: oh hang on, wrong column. Didn’t they tell you? We’re all written by the same person. So I’ve been reading the BBC’s Read the rest of this entry »

Of big TVs and magic cows

September 17th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in bad science, very basic science | 13 Comments »

Ben Goldacre
Saturday September 17, 2005
The Guardian

Welcome to Bad Science, where we catch, dissect, and then publicly flog the fools and frauds who talk nonsense about science. From cosmetics adverts, to alternative therapists, to flaky journalists and their Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t dumb me down

September 8th, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in adverts, alternative medicine, bad science, bbc, cash-for-"stories", channel 4, channel five, chocolate, dangers, express, gillian mckeith, independent, letters, mail, media, mirror, MMR, PhDs, doctors, and qualifications, references, scare stories, statistics, telegraph, times, very basic science, weight loss | 85 Comments »

We laughed, we cried, we learned about statistics … Ben Goldacre on why writing Bad Science has increased his suspicion of the media by, ooh, a lot of per cents

Ben Goldacre
Thursday September 8, 2005
The Guardian

OK, here’s something weird. Every week in Bad Science we either victimise some barking pseudoscientific quack, or a big science story in a national newspaper. Now, tell me, why are these two groups even being mentioned in the same breath? Why is science in the media so often pointless, simplistic, boring, or just plain wrong? Like a proper little Darwin, I’ve been Read the rest of this entry »

Letters in Guardian about the Placebo piece

August 31st, 2005 by Ben Goldacre in alternative medicine, bad science, homeopathy, letters, placebo, quantum physics, very basic science | 58 Comments »

Letters: Observing the benefits of placebos
Wednesday August 31, 2005
The Guardian

Ben Goldacre’s thought-provoking piece (A tonic for sceptics, August 29) moves forward the debate about Read the rest of this entry »