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Transparency and detail are everything in science.

Ben Goldacre

You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.
BEN GOLDACRE

Body Mind Play
I hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease
BEN GOLDACRE

Disease Stage Trials
These corporations run our culture, and they riddle it with bullshit.
BEN GOLDACRE

Bullshit Culture Running
I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
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Bits Complicated Thinking
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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Change Own Political Require
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
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
Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.
BEN GOLDACRE

Data Decision Doctors
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.
BEN GOLDACRE

Coats Support White
You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
BEN GOLDACRE

Argument People Reason
If I was writing a lifestyle book it would have the same advice on every page, and you’d know it all already.
BEN GOLDACRE

Book Real Writing
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.
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Activities Leisure People Talking
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
Children can be disgusting, and often they can develop extraordinary talents, but I’m yet to meet any child who can stimulate his carotid arteries inside his ribcage.
BEN GOLDACRE

Children Talent
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
The plural of anecdotes is not data
BEN GOLDACRE

Anecdotes Data Plural

Transparency and detail are everything in science.

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Transparency and detail are everything in science.

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