Bad Science is a great book. It's a book about how the media misrepresents science. It's also about how various quacks exploit public ignorance of science for profit. It's funny and it's clearly written.
Science and the modern media are not really compatible. Science is about trying to understand our world by careful observation and trying to prove that your own preconcieved ideas about the world are wrong. The modern media is about selling newspapers and little else. The press is sensationalist and science is possibly a bit slow and boring.
Over the years scientific research has been misrepresented in the press to create scare stories. Alternative therapists make money by exploiting sick or anxious people with magical explanations for their crafts. Goldacre describes several interesting cases clearly.
I enjoyed this book because I've always been interested in English and the media. When I was a kid I wanted to be a writer or a journalist. I did a BSc in Neuroscience before doing to medical school and I'm currently just starting on a research degree. During my BSc I did a course on 'Science communication' which was about explaining scientific concepts to the general public. At medical school I did a 3 week block on Alternative Therapies which was interesting. It made me realise that some alternative therapies have more in common theoretically with the works of George Lucas than scientific, modern evidence based medicine.
This book is great. I hope a lot of people read it.
see
www.badscience.net
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