to be a little in love with Ben Goldacre?

[entropyglitter]

Just read 'bad science' (finally) and I think I am in love.....

my favourite bit was Gillian McKeith thinking that oxygen (generated by chlorophyll) in your gut is not only plausible, but at all a good idea....

presumably this is at the same time as main lining anti-oxidants (which had been shown to increase your risk of disease rather than decrease it).

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9223094

You don't have to be a scientist to understand what is science and what isn't; you don't have to be a statistician to (more or less) understand statistics. Anyone who helps non-scientists to this understanding at all is A Good Thing in my book. 'Bad Science' should be required reading for all medical doctors and everyone in the legal profession for a start.

Is there anyone else who tackles similar ground in an accessible manner?

He does us a great public service and for that alone, is allowed to be as pompous and as rich as he wants to be.
I love him and 'Bad Science' should be required reading.

He published that 15 years ago. Where is his work since then?

Verysmelly, there's only one scientific paper there - the 1997 one, the rest are journalism, which isn't science.

Shouldn't people who are fans of his Bad Science be able to recognise the difference?

How do you know he smokes?

"He's also a smartarse and not as qualified in science as he claims."

"Smartarse" is obviously a matter of opinion, but "not as qualified inn science as he claims" needs to be backed up with hard facts.

YA a bit U. He doesn't like women much (his book keeps assuming a male reader, most obviously when he tells you to look at your own sperm under a microscope!).

On the other hand, he's making really important points, some of which are not as obvious to a lot of people as they ought to be. So maybe not very U.

noblegiraffe sydneyscarborough
Friend bumped into him outside a conference venue, where he was having a cigarette. Can't quite recall which conference, might even have been one of the Party conferences now I think of it.

Anyway, it's broadly immaterial, just struck me as odd. He was great in Uncaged Monkeys on tour.

What has he said that you disagree with, thunderbolt?

thunder, what exactly is your problem with someone examining evidence and calling bullshit where they see it, apparently fairly and accurately if the accolades are anything to go by?

Why would you insist that someone have a PhD before they can do that?

Insisting that someone has a PhD before they can say 'Hang on, where's the control in this experiment' or 'That sample size is a bit small' or 'The reference you've made to back up your claims is in a self-published pamphlet' is shit. It is suggesting that only special people can criticise claims to have found a new wonder-drug or to cure cancer by a bit of hand-waving. Sure it might take a statistician to pick out a flaw in a complicated trial, but it certainly doesn't to take down the bollocks that is regularly printed as fact in the Daily Mail.

It is important that people learn these critical thinking skills so that they don't get sold snake-oil by people only too happy to take their money. In some cases, snake-oil that will kill them.

Goldacre doesn't set himself up as an authority figure. He would love for you to ask to see the evidence for his arguments yourself. PhD or otherwise.

Fair enough thunderbolts - I do see your point.

But I don't think he is setting himself up as a pure research scientist. And the amount of media/writing he does is HUGE and important and time-consuming, so I am not surprised he hasn't published much original actual research. It took me two years of full-time research to get three papers out, and two of those were in very crap journals .

Can I ask what your specific problem is with him, whether you disagree with him on a particular issue?

dh loves him deeply, but I went right off him after he published some anti-feminist twaddle.

noblegiraffe great post by the way.

Can someone point me to his anti- feminist publications?

I think it's very funny that he smokes. Does he think the link between smoking and cancer is bunkum?

Are you saying that everyone who smokes does it bcause they don't believe there's a link been smoking and cancer?

No, that would be silly.

Hardly anyone must believe that.

But people who smoke other substances get their thinking in a muddle.

Even top science people can be addicted to nicotine, sadly!

sorry seeker, I can't - it was years ago, I think in one of his Observer columns. He was taking the mick out of the feminist notion that science would look different if it had been conducted by women. Goldacre's reply was basically, "oh yeah, Newton's Third Law of Thermodynamics wouldn't apply if most scientists were women? Bollocks, etc." As though Newton's Third Law can be made to stand in for the entire geography of scientific research over the past six hundred years. (Before I had babies I used to know what that argumentative trick was called - sigh.) I need to get the dc's brekky, otherwise I'd go try and look it up for you.

Hmmm- I'm inclined to say I will allow him a slip up, bearing in mind his stirling work in other areas.

Bizarre the suggeetion that that his lack of PhD means he shouldn't comment on completely unqualificied charlatans and snake oil salesmen.

I think it's hilarious that he writes on evidence and health, and is a smoker; and is a psychiatrist who can't overcome his own addictions.

That is one freaky guy.

Not sure about love, but Bad Science is an excellent book, I recommend it to all my students as it is very accessible way to read about and understand peer review etc.

The woo brigade don't like him at all, understandably I suppose.