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 GOLDACREI think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
More Ben Goldacre Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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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I agree, the world would be a better place if doctors were less enthusiastic about adopting very new drugs.
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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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I hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease
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These corporations run our culture, and they riddle it with bullshit.
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Transparency and detail are everything in science.
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The plural of anecdotes is not data
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Real science is all about critically appraising the evidence for somebody else’s position.
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You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.
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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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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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