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

Ben Goldacre

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

Bits Complicated Thinking
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.
BEN GOLDACRE

Practice Teacher Teaching
Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn’t mean flying carpets exist.
BEN GOLDACRE

Design Mean Pain
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
I hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease
BEN GOLDACRE

Disease Stage Trials
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
Amazing things happen when you pull individual pieces of information together into larger linked datasets: meaning emerges, as you produce facts from figures.
BEN GOLDACRE

Facts Pieces Together
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
The plural of anecdotes is not data
BEN GOLDACRE

Anecdotes Data Plural
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’ve detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don’t link to primary sources, I just don’t trust you.
BEN GOLDACRE

Linking New Rule Source Transparently
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.
BEN GOLDACRE

Blood Oxygen Water
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
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

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

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

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