Ben Goldacre
Ben Goldacre
Ben Michael Goldacre is a British physician, academic and science writer. As of March 2015, he is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, part of the University of Oxford's Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences. He is a founder of the AllTrials campaign to require open science practices in clinical trials...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionWriter
Ben Goldacre quotes about
beyond express goes information informed invite relevant scientific
The value of a scientific publication goes beyond this simple benefit, of all relevant information appearing, unambiguously, in one place. It's also a way to communicate your ideas to your scientific peers, and invite them to express an informed view.
companies developing good reasonably
In general, drug companies are reasonably good at developing new treatments, and there's also a lot of good in the industry.
bad field protected
Bad things happen when problems are protected by a force field of tediousness.
apparently case chooses deliberate directly scientist technical
If a scientist sidesteps their scientific peers, and chooses to take an apparently changeable, frightening and technical scientific case directly to the public, then that is a deliberate decision, and one that can't realistically go unnoticed.
few people perhaps period prescribe side six tested thousand time whether
When you prescribe a new drug, often you are prescribing something that has only been tested in a few thousand people for a very short period of time, perhaps only six months, and that's not long enough to know whether there are any medium- or long-term side effects.
academics basis cited ideal imagine lots might papers scientific stuff
In an ideal world, you might imagine that scientific papers were only cited by academics on the basis of their content. This might be true. But lots of other stuff can have an influence.
articles complaints forged formal offer post threats
More academics should blog, post videos, post audio, post lectures, offer articles and more. You'll enjoy it: I've had threats and blackmail, abuse, smears and formal complaints with forged documentation.
explain precision reference science studies white
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.
authority built calls clear core following honest judgment line method precision results science white
Science isn't about authority or white coats; it's about following a method. That method is built on core principles: precision and transparency; being clear about your methods; being honest about your results; and drawing a clear line between the results, on the one hand, and your judgment calls about how those results support a hypothesis.
crossover people quite slightly tricks
There is actually quite a lot of crossover between the quacks and drug companies. They use the same tricks and tactics to bamboozle people into buying their pills, but drug firms can afford to use slightly more sophisticated versions.
past reality doctors
In the past, [medicalization]has been portrayed as something that doctors inflict on a passive and un-suspecting world - an expansion of the Medical Empire. But in reality, it seems that these reductionist bio-medical stories can appeal to us all, because complex problems often have depressingly-complex causes, and the solutions can be taxing, and unsatisfactory.
doctors people roles
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.
teacher teaching practice
Teaching needs an ecosystem that supports evidence-based practice. It will need better systems to disseminate the results of research more widely, but also a better understanding of research, so that teachers can be critical consumers of evidence.
pain motivation thumbs
Most bloggers have no institutional credibility, and so they must build it, by linking transparently, and allowing you to easily double check their work. But more than anything, because linking sources is such an easy thing to do, and the motivations for avoiding links are so dubious, I've detected myself using a new rule of thumb: if you don't link to primary sources, I just don't trust you.