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 GOLDACREJust just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn’t mean flying carpets exist.
More Ben Goldacre Quotes
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One of the things I always found interesting is the same tricks are used to distort medicine in all of those domains.
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You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
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If I was writing a lifestyle book it would have the same advice on every page, and you’d know it all already.
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Teaching needs an ecosystem that supports evidence-based practice. It will need better systems to disseminate the results of research more widely, but also a better understanding of research, so that teachers can be critical consumers of evidence.
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Amazing things happen when you pull individual pieces of information together into larger linked datasets: meaning emerges, as you produce facts from figures.
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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.
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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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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.
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Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn’t mean flying carpets exist.
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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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You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.
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As it is a major component of blood, water is vital for transporting oxygen to the brain. Heaven forbid that your blood should dry out.
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I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
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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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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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