Whenever I’m in Oxford, I make a point of stopping at Blackwell’s books, then popping in for a pint downstairs at the White Horse. Last month, we were visiting friends in Oxford, and I managed to slip away for a few hours. I had just made it to the register at Blackwell’s when I saw Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science on the Staff Recommendations table. As I had spent a little too much time in the Used Books section, and still wanted to have my pint before slipping back to the house, I thought, “I’ll pick it up in London on Friday.”
I had Friday morning to myself, so after a haircut, I stopped at the Waterstone’s near Trafalgar Square. Not knowing exactly how they would shelve it, I asked about Goldacre’s book at the Enquiries desk.
“That should be in Science,” she said, and pointed me to that section.
Not there.
“Oh, then maybe you should try Medicine.”
Not there either.
“Well, the computer says we have 19 copies. Let me see if I can find it for you.” She got up from behind the desk and walked out onto the floor. 30 minutes, 3 more employees, and many regrets for not having grabbed the copy in Oxford later, the Manager approached me.
“Terribly sorry, but we can’t find a copy anywhere. The computer says we have 19 copies… I wouldn’t think that book would be a target for thieves….”
After finally getting a copy at a different Waterstones (where the computer said they had 16 copies, but we could find only one), there is a part of me that hopes this book is popular enough to be a target of theft. The more people that read this book, the better it will be for rational discourse about health and science.
Goldacre, a doctor working for the UK’s National Health Service, is probably best known for his column in the Guardian. In his column and in this book, he attempts to educate his readers in the ways of science and evidence-based medicine. In an early chapter on homeopathy, he states
By the end of this section you will know more about evidence-based medicine and trial design than the average doctor. You will understand how trials can go wrong, and give false positive results, how the placebo effect works, and why we tend to overestimate the efficacy of pills.
He goes on to discuss homeopathy, pharmaceutical companies, high-profile “health experts” who were unknown to this Yank, and the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine controversy, all with a combination of humor, statistics, and a critical eye. He clearly explains how scientific trials work, where there will be flaws (there are always flaws), and how responsible researchers work to minimize them. All of this I expected.
What I did not expect was who he held responsible for most of these issues being issues at all. He believes the media have relinquished their responsibility to understand and teach science in their own science reporting. While most major news organizations have dedicated science reporters, “science journalists simply do not cover major science news stories.” Instead, these big stories are handed off to generalists who weave a story around the issue, without having a full understanding of the science at the core of the issue.
These generalists, Goldacre argues, are humanities graduates, who
perhaps feeling intellectually offended by how hard they find the science, conclude that it must simply be arbitrary, made up nonsense, to everyone.
He calls this the “humanities graduate journalists’ parody of science:”
science is about groundless, changeable, didactic truth statements from arbitrary unelected authority figures.
Add to this people’s preference for story over statistics, and you get media-created controversies based on bad science. He even goes so far as to call the vaccine controversy in the UK “The Media’s MMR Hoax.”
Perhaps part of this problem comes from the journalists’ traditional approach to news-gathering: obtaining a piece of information and then having it verified by a second source. But, as Goldacre points out, “they use authority figures, the very antithesis of what science is about, as if they were priests, or politicians, or parent figures.”
In other words, journalists rely on authority figures. A journalist must trust his sources, and if two of them say something is so, he can report it. A journalist needs to be able to take his sources on their word.
But, Goldacre explains that this is not how evidence-based medicine, nor indeed science, works.
If you visit the premises of the Royal Society , you’ll see its motto proudly on display: ‘Nullius in verba’ – ‘On the word of no one.’
Skeptics should find warmth and comfort in those words. Skeptics should also find a copy of Goldacre’s book as soon as possible.
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[Editor's note: if you would like a chance to win my copy of Bad Science, leave a comment on last week's post. You can also keep up with Dr Goldacre at his site, badscience.net]
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I agree, “Skeptics should also find a copy of Goldacre’s book as soon as possible.” but maybe his US edition with appropriate examples, but the same important message, might be something worth waiting for. (says a Brit)
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