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I write about misuses of evidence in plenty of different spheres: scaremongering journalists, obvious quacks and naturopaths, and flaws in the way that evidence is used in mainstream academia, medicine and in (government) policy.

Ben Goldacre

I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
BEN GOLDACRE

Bits Complicated Thinking
One of the things I always found interesting is the same tricks are used to distort medicine in all of those domains.
BEN GOLDACRE

Interesting Medicine Trick
Positive findings are around twice as likely to be published as negative findings. This is a cancer at the core of evidence-based medicine.
BEN GOLDACRE

Cancer Inspiration Motivation
But as we will see, even these things are hard to do on your own, and in reality require wholesale social and political changes.
BEN GOLDACRE

Change Own Political Require
Transparency and detail are everything in science.
BEN GOLDACRE

Details Everything Transparency
Yes. I’m a doctor, an epidemiologist, and lots of my professional colleagues flip back and forth between industry and medical roles. I know them; they are not bad people. But it is possible for good people in bad systems to do things that inflict enormous harm.
BEN GOLDACRE

Doctors People Roles
Eat lots of fruit and vegetables, and live your whole life in every way as well as you can: exercise regularly as part of your daily routine, avoid obesity, don’t drink too much, don’t smoke, and don’t get distracted from the real, basic, simple causes of ill health.
BEN GOLDACRE

Daily Excercise Life Lot Obesity Routine Vegetable
There are many differences between medicine and teaching, but they have much in common. Both involve craft and personal expertise, learned through experience; but both can be informed by the experience of others.
BEN GOLDACRE

Differences Medicine Teaching
I agree, the world would be a better place if doctors were less enthusiastic about adopting very new drugs.
BEN GOLDACRE

Adopt Doctors Drugs Enthusiastic
The placebo effect is one of the most fascinating things in the whole of medicine. It’s not just about taking a pill, and your performance and your pain getting better. It’s about our beliefs and expectations. It’s about the cultural meaning of a treatment.
BEN GOLDACRE

Inspiration Motivation Pain
I spend a lot of time talking to people who disagree with me – I would go so far as to say that it’s my favourite leisure activity.
BEN GOLDACRE

Activities Leisure People Talking
There is this peculiar blind spot in the culture of academic medicine around whether withholding trial results is research misconduct. People who work in any industry can reinforce each others’ ideas about what is okay.
BEN GOLDACRE

Blind Ideas Medicine Spots
And if, by the end [of this book], you reckon you might still disagree with me, then I offer you this: you’ll still be wrong, but you’ll be wrong with a lot more panache and flair than you could possibly manage right now.
BEN GOLDACRE

Book Ends might
I write about misuses of evidence in plenty of different spheres: scaremongering journalists, obvious quacks and naturopaths, and flaws in the way that evidence is used in mainstream academia, medicine and in (government) policy.
BEN GOLDACRE

Different Interesting Writing
Data is the fabric of the modern world: just like we walk down pavements, so we trace routes through data, and build knowledge and products out of it.
BEN GOLDACRE

Data Fabric Pavement
Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn’t mean flying carpets exist.
BEN GOLDACRE

Design Mean Pain

I write about misuses of evidence in plenty of different spheres: scaremongering journalists, obvious quacks and naturopaths, and flaws in the way that evidence is used in mainstream academia, medicine and in (government) policy.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I write about misuses of evidence in plenty of different spheres: scaremongering journalists, obvious quacks and naturopaths, and flaws in the way that evidence is used in mainstream academia, medicine and in (government) policy.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Goldacre Quotes