Is Bad Science Hurting You? An Attack on the Enemies of Reason by Ben Goldacre
Ben Goldacre is an English medical doctor and author of “Bad Science.” He’s beside himself with indignation at what he sees as the unscientific nonsense that passes for science information in the popular press. He’s particularly concerned about what people are led to believe about their health. He observes that the public is obsessed about health issues–half of all science stories in the media are medical. He says we are “bombarded with scary sounding claims and stories.” But, he claims, these stories we get are from reporters who don’t understand scientific evidence.
Take homeopathy, Goldacre’s favourite whipping boy. Samuel Hahnemann devised homeopathy in the late eighteenth century. He decided that if he could find a substance that could induce symptoms of a disease in a healthy individual then it could be used to treat the same symptoms in a sick person. His first homeopathic remedy was cinchona bark, which he suggested…