The plural of anecdotes is not data
BEN GOLDACREThere 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.
More Ben Goldacre Quotes
-
-
I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
BEN GOLDACRE -
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 -
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 -
You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.
BEN GOLDACRE -
You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.
BEN GOLDACRE -
Transparency and detail are everything in science.
BEN GOLDACRE -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
I hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease
BEN GOLDACRE -
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.
BEN GOLDACRE -
These corporations run our culture, and they riddle it with bullshit.
BEN GOLDACRE -
One of the things I always found interesting is the same tricks are used to distort medicine in all of those domains.
BEN GOLDACRE