![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ben Goldacre Explains Bad Science
Oct. 12th, 2011 12:18 amI would presume that most people are familiar with Ben Goldacre by now, but just in case, here's a quick summary. He's a former doctor, now an epidemiologist. His main field of interest is the way to confirm what studies on health and medicine actually tell us. He's been a big critic of mainstream health and science journalism because such columns not only regularly misleads readers, but quite often brazenly lie to them.
His blog is here.
He's got a book (which I thoroughly recommend).
And here's a nice little article responding to a supporter of homeopathy, just to get you started.
(You'll notice that while the article in the third link starts with a "correction", it's more like a clarification by the journalist it is contesting - since she was writing in the same newspaper.)
Anyway, there's a rather neat video where he zooms through all his research in his normal jolly amusing fashion and, even if you've heard it all before, it's quite cool to hear him say it out loud like this.
However, one "blink and you'll miss it" point that he mentions (something he's said elsewhere before) is that one of earliest known "controlled tests" is actually -no kidding- in the Bible. Goldacre very quickly says "Daniel 1:12". Here's a slightly larger section from that chapter in the Bible:
"Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days."
The king insisted that the soldiers be given royal food because he thought it would mean the soldiers were better fed and would be more able soldiers as a result. Daniel, however, reckoned they'd be fitter with simple vegetables and water. Daniel insists that they do a test for 10 days with half the servants (presumably a pretty large number of people) being given just vegetables and water during that time and the other half carrying on with the royal food they were used to. (Daniel turns out to be right.)
Of course, we're not talking about the same systematic and consistent testing that we find in the huge body of modern science, but it's certainly following the same basic principles that good empirical testing requires today. I thought that was quite interesting.
Anyway, the full video is embedded below (with a link underneath in case the video doesn't appear):
(video link)
x-posted to atheism
His blog is here.
He's got a book (which I thoroughly recommend).
And here's a nice little article responding to a supporter of homeopathy, just to get you started.
(You'll notice that while the article in the third link starts with a "correction", it's more like a clarification by the journalist it is contesting - since she was writing in the same newspaper.)
Anyway, there's a rather neat video where he zooms through all his research in his normal jolly amusing fashion and, even if you've heard it all before, it's quite cool to hear him say it out loud like this.
However, one "blink and you'll miss it" point that he mentions (something he's said elsewhere before) is that one of earliest known "controlled tests" is actually -no kidding- in the Bible. Goldacre very quickly says "Daniel 1:12". Here's a slightly larger section from that chapter in the Bible:
"Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days."
The king insisted that the soldiers be given royal food because he thought it would mean the soldiers were better fed and would be more able soldiers as a result. Daniel, however, reckoned they'd be fitter with simple vegetables and water. Daniel insists that they do a test for 10 days with half the servants (presumably a pretty large number of people) being given just vegetables and water during that time and the other half carrying on with the royal food they were used to. (Daniel turns out to be right.)
Of course, we're not talking about the same systematic and consistent testing that we find in the huge body of modern science, but it's certainly following the same basic principles that good empirical testing requires today. I thought that was quite interesting.
Anyway, the full video is embedded below (with a link underneath in case the video doesn't appear):
(video link)
x-posted to atheism
