Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn’t mean flying carpets exist.
BEN GOLDACREThese corporations run our culture, and they riddle it with bullshit.
More Ben Goldacre Quotes
-
-
I hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.
BEN GOLDACRE -
These corporations run our culture, and they riddle it with bullshit.
BEN GOLDACRE -
Transparency and detail are everything in science.
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 think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
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 -
Eat lots of fruit and vegetables, and live your whole life in every way as well as you can: exercise regularly as part of your daily routine, avoid obesity, don’t drink too much, don’t smoke, and don’t get distracted from the real, basic, simple causes of ill health.
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 -
But as we will see, even these things are hard to do on your own, and in reality require wholesale social and political changes.
BEN GOLDACRE






