Ben Goldacre - Four Way Interview

Ben Goldacre is an award winning writer, broadcaster, and medical doctor who has written the weekly Bad Science column in the Guardian since 2003. His Bad Science blog is an unparalleled source of information on dubious science, particularly in complementary medicine. His book, with the inspired title Bad Science, came out in November 2008.

Why Science?

More because it’s interesting than because it’s right.

Why this book?

Because I wanted to have everything in one place, the whole story of how we know if something does us good or harm, and the many ways that we can be misled by other people or, more interestingly, ourselves.

What’s next?

Golly, I don’t know. I might do a book for doctors and medical students on how to spot dodgy evidence from big pharma, expanding on the book chapter, since I do some teaching on that, and I think it’s a way to make teaching critical appraisal skills a bit more interesting. Epidemiology was called “epidemiholiday” when i was at medical school.

What’s exciting you at the moment?

The album by Au Revoir Simone (The Bird of Music), badscienceblogs.net, a musical device designer called “the Harvestman”.

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