If I was writing a lifestyle book it would have the same advice on every page, and you’d know it all already.
BEN GOLDACREIf I was writing a lifestyle book it would have the same advice on every page, and you’d know it all already.
BEN GOLDACREI think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
BEN GOLDACREI 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.
BEN GOLDACREReal science is all about critically appraising the evidence for somebody else’s position.
BEN GOLDACREThe plural of anecdotes is not data
BEN GOLDACRETransparency and detail are everything in science.
BEN GOLDACREData 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 GOLDACREThe 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 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.
BEN GOLDACREChildren 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 GOLDACREScience 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 GOLDACREYou are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.
BEN GOLDACREI think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that.
BEN GOLDACREI 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 GOLDACREDoctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.
BEN GOLDACREBut 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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