Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.
BEN GOLDACREJust just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn’t mean flying carpets exist.
More Ben Goldacre Quotes
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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.
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Real science is all about critically appraising the evidence for somebody else’s position.
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I’ve detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don’t link to primary sources, I just don’t trust you.
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I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
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You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
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But as we will see, even these things are hard to do on your own, and in reality require wholesale social and political changes.
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Positive findings are around twice as likely to be published as negative findings. This is a cancer at the core of evidence-based medicine.
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You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.
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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.
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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.
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I agree, the world would be a better place if doctors were less enthusiastic about adopting very new drugs.
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Science has authority not because of white coats or titles, but because of precision and transparency: you explain your theory, set out your evidence, and reference the studies that support your case.
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Transparency and detail are everything in science.
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Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn’t mean flying carpets exist.
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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.
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