Bad Science

Have you ever wondered how one day the media can assert that alcohol is bad for us and the next unashamedly run a story touting the benefits of daily alcohol consumption? Or how a drug that is pulled off the market for causing heart attacks ever got approved in the first place? How can average readers, who aren't medical doctors or Ph.D.s in biochemistry, tell what they should be paying attention to and what's, well, just more bullshit? Ben Goldacre has made a point of exposing quack doctors and nutritionists, bogus credentialing programs, and biased scientific studies. He has also taken the media to task for its willingness to throw facts and proof out the window. But he's not here just to tell you what's wrong. Goldacre is here to teach you how to evaluate placebo effects, double-blind studies, and sample sizes, so that you can recognize bad science when you see it. You're about to feel a whole lot better.

The informative and witty exposé of the "bad science" we are all subjected to, called "one of the essential reads of the year" by New Scientist. We are obsessed with our health. And yet—from the media's "world-expert microbiologist" with a mail-order Ph.D. in his garden shed laboratory, and via multiple health scares and miracle cures—we are constantly bombarded with inaccurate, contradictory, and sometimes even misleading information. Until now. Ben Goldacre masterfully dismantles the questionable science behind some of the great drug trials, court cases, and missed opportunities of our time, but he also goes further: out of the bullshit, he shows us the fascinating story of how we know what we know, and gives us the tools to uncover bad science for ourselves.

Documents the bizarre 1989 episode of 2 scientists who announced they had created a sustained nuclear-fusion reaction at room temperature & the ensuing scandal.

#1 New York Times Bestseller In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

We are constantly bombarded with breaking scientific news in the media, but we are almost never provided with enough information to assess the truth of these claims. This book teaches readers how to think like a scientist to question claims like these more critically.

All the science in Breaking Bad—from explosive experiments to acid-based evidence destruction—explained and analyzed for authenticity. Breaking Bad's (anti)hero Walter White (played by Emmy-winner Bryan Cranston) is a scientist, a high school chemistry teacher who displays a plaque that recognizes his “contributions to research awarded the Nobel Prize.” During the course of five seasons, Walt practices a lot of ad hoc chemistry—from experiments that explode to acid-based evidence destruction to an amazing repertoire of methodologies for illicit meth making. But how much of Walt's science is actually scientific? In The Science of “Breaking Bad,” Dave Trumbore and Donna Nelson explain, analyze, and evaluate the show's portrayal of science, from the pilot's opening credits to the final moments of the series finale. The intent is not, of course, to provide a how-to manual for wannabe meth moguls but to decode the show's most head-turning, jaw-dropping moments. Trumbore, a science and entertainment writer, and Nelson, a professor of chemistry and Breaking Bad's science advisor, are the perfect scientific tour guides. Trumbore and Nelson cover the show's portrayal of chemistry, biology, physics, and subdivisions of each area including toxicology and electromagnetism. They explain, among other things, Walt's DIY battery making; the dangers of Mylar balloons; the feasibility of using hydrofluoric acid to dissolve bodies; and the chemistry of methamphetamine itself. Nelson adds interesting behind-the-scenes anecdotes and describes her work with the show's creator and writers. Marius Stan, who played Bogdan on the show (and who is a PhD scientist himself) contributes a foreword. This is a book for every science buff who appreciated the show's scientific moments and every diehard Breaking Bad fan who wondered just how smart Walt really was.

Now a National Bestseller! Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world’s last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today’s Green New Deal. And he led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction. Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas. Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions. What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.

The very best journalism from one of Britain's most admired and outspoken science writers, author of the bestselling Bad Science and Bad Pharma. In 'Bad Science', Ben Goldacre hilariously exposed the tricks that quacks and journalists use to distort science. In 'Bad Pharma', he put the $600 billion global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. Now the pick of the journalism by one of our wittiiest, most indignant and most fearless commentators on the worlds of medicine and science is collected in one volume.