I Think You'll Find It's a Bit More Complicated Than That (55 page)

‘Mood Maker’
:
http://www.galonja.co.uk/galonja_shop/product.asp?g_s_n=crlshop&g_u_no=0&g_u_nam=&g_tim=&pid=97&v_det=1&full=1&c_id=0

Electrohealing
:
http://www.galonja.co.uk/galonja_shop/product.asp?g_s_n=crlshop&g_u_no=0&g_u_nam=&g_tim=&pid=46&v_det=1&full=1&c_id=0

Atlantis
:
http://www.galonja.co.uk/galonja_shop/product.asp?g_s_n=crlshop&g_u_no=0&g_u_nam=&g_tim=&pid=59&v_det=1&full=1&c_id=0

The Aids test
:
http://www.badscience.net/2007/12/aids-quackery-international-tour/, http://www.badscience.net/2007/09/homeopathy gives-you-aids/and http://www.badscience.net/2007/02/money-is-not-the-only-barrier-to-aids-patients-getting-hold-of-drugs/

Coghill on Aids
:
http://web.archive.org/web/20041013110533/http://www.cogreslab.co.uk/aids.htm

BRAINIAC

Ka-Boom! Science! COOL!!?!

Ka-Boom!
: 831
http://www.badscience.net/2006/07/ka-boom/

Who’s the Daddy?

Who’s the Daddy?
:
http://www.badscience.net/2006/07/whos-the-daddy/

STUFF

Here’s My … Foreword to the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway Guidebook

Here’s my
:
http://www.badscience.net/2013/12/heres-my-intro-to-the-romney-hythe-and-dimchurch-railway-guidebook/

narrow gauge railway
:
http://www.rhdr.org.uk/

sound mirrors
:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_mirror

How I Stalked My Girlfriend

How I Stalked
:
http://www.badscience.net/2006/02/how-i-stalked-my-girlfriend/

EARLY SNARKS

Staying Beautiful Is Easy to Do

Staying Beautiful
:
http://www.badscience.net/2003/05/staying-beautiful-is-easy-to-do/

Because You’re Worth It

Because You’re
:
http://www.badscience.net/2003/11/because-youre-worth-it/

More Than Water?

More than Water?
:
http://www.badscience.net/2004/01/more-than-water/

‘Nanniebots’ to Catch Paedophiles

‘Nanniebots’
:
http://www.badscience.net/2004/03/nanniebots-to-catch-paedophiles/

New Scientist
’s chat with Nanniebot
:
http://www.tinyurl.com/2y55h

talk to it online
:
http://www.tinyurl.com/2osgo

Nanniebots and Neverland

Nanniebots and Neverland
:
http://www.badscience.net/2004/04/nanniebots-and-neverland/

making false claims
:
tinyurl.com/3gfxv

modified the device to stream shows
:
tinyurl.com/38wmx

posting did state
:
tinyurl.com/2jg3p

chatnannies.com
:
http://chatnannies.com/

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence
:
http://www.badscience.net/2004/06/artificial-intransigence/

BOOKENDS

Be Very Afraid: The Bad Science Manifesto

Be Very Afraid
:
http://www.badscience.net/2003/04/be-very-afraid-the-bad-science-manifesto/

What Eight Years of Writing the Bad Science Column Has Taught Me

finish a book
:
http://www.badscience.net/books/the-drug-pushers/

what I’ve learned
:
http://www.badscience.net/2010/12/the-year-in-nonsense-2/and http://www.badscience.net/2009/12/the-year-in-nonsense/

in eight years
:
http://www.badscience.net/2008/12/the-year-in-bad-science-2/

writing this column
:
http://www.badscience.net/2007/12/the-year-in-bad-science-2007/and http://www.badscience.net/2006/12/the-year-in-bad-science/

Alternative therapists
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/complementary-medicine/

great teaching tool
:
http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/a-kind-of-magic/

medicines regulators
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/02/pretending-that-evidence-is-difficult-and-complicated/

universities
:
http://www.badscience.net/2010/02/how-do-you-regulate-wu/

science and evidence in culture
:
http://www.badscience.net/2008/09/the-medicalisation-of-everyday-life/

their libel cases
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/libel/

comedy factory
:
http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/bill-nelson-wins-the-internet/and http://www.badscience.net/2007/05/the-amazing-qlink-science-pedant/

how the world works
:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/bad-science-effective-things-silly-places

the placebo effect
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/placebo/

misled by heuristics
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/irrationality-research/

thrills, and power
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/03/why-cigarette-packs-matter/

Pharmaceutical companies
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/big-pharma/

still won’t publish all
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/publication-bias/

we tolerate it
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/03/when-regulation-is-opaque-trust-is-all-you-have/

Journalists
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/media/

can mislead the public
:
http://www.badscience.net/2010/10/the-caveat-in-paragraph-number-19/

the methods and techniques
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/10/new-edition-of-testing-treatments-best-lay-text-on-evidence-based-medicine/

Politicians misuse evidence
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/politics/

and distort it
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/04/id-expect-this-from-ukip-or-the-daily-mail-not-from-a-government-leaflet/

to shameful degrees
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/02/andrew-lansley-and-his-imaginary-evidence/and http://www.badscience.net/2011/02/why-is-evidence-so-hard-for-politicians/

trials of policies
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/05/we-should-so-blatantly-do-more-randomised-trials-on-policy/

if they achieve
:
http://www.badscience.net/2010/05/politicians-can-divine-which-policy-works-best-by-using-their-special-magic-politician-beam/

no honourable excuse
:
http://www.badscience.net/2009/09/blueprint-fail/

the fairest tests
:
http://www.badscience.net/category/evidence-based-policy/

Real scientists
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/11/why-wont-professor-greenfield-publish-this-theory-in-a-scientific-journal/

clear line between the results
:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/29/duchennes-muscular-dystrophy-surrogate-outcomes

nerds are more powerful
:
http://www.badscience.net/2011/06/kids-who-spot-bullshit-and-the-adults-who-get-upset-about-it/

best teaching gimmick
:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_battling_bad_science.html

for explaining
:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/28/bad-science-diy-data-analysis?INTCMP=SRCH

how good
:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/16/bad-science-dodgy-stats

science works
:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/09/bad-science-research-error

List of Illustrations

1
. © Gina Kelly/Alamy

2
. in Greenberg, S., ‘How citation distortions create unfounded authority: analysis of a citation network’,
BMJ
2009;339:b2680

3
. © Hulton Archive

4
. adapted from Hurlbert, Anya C. et al., ‘Biological components of sex differences in color preference’,
Current Biology
, Volume 17, Issue 16, R623–R625

5
. by kind permission of Matt Parker

6
. © Rick Strange/Alamy

7
. © Ady Kerry/Alamy

8
. Paul Barden,
http://pb204.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/im-grateful-to-david-spiegelhalter-of.html

9
. The Life Picture Collection via Getty Images

10
. © CBW/Alamy

11
. © Everett Collection Historical/Alamy

12
. © Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

13
. © Bettmann/Corbis

14
. © Bettmann/Corbis

15
. © The Cartoon Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images

16
. © Cardiff University Library, Cochrane Archive, University Hospital Llandough

17
. image courtesy of The Advertising Archive

18
. by kind permission of Alice and Matthew O’Connor

19
. © Katie Garrod/JAI/Corbis

Index

“The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.”

A&E departments: randomised trials in 208; waiting times 73–5

abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) 18, 114

abortion; GPs and xviii, 89–91; Science and Technology Committee report on ‘scientific developments relating to the Abortion Act, 1967’ 196–201

academia, bad xviii–xix, 127–46; animal experiments, failures in research 136–8; brain-imaging studies report more positive findings than their numbers can support 131–4; journals, failures of academic 138–46;
Medical Hypotheses
: Aids
denialism in 138–41;
Medical Hypotheses
: ‘Down Subjects and Oriental Population Share Several Specific Attitudes and Characteristics’ article 139, 141–3;
Medical Hypotheses
: masturbation as a treatment for nasal congestion articles 139, 143–6; misuse of statistics 129–31; retractions, academic literature and 134–6

academic journals: access to papers published in 32–4, 143; cherry-picking and 5–8; ‘citation classics’ and 9–10, 102–3, 173; commercial ghost writers and 25–6; data published in newspapers rather than 17–20; doctors and technical academic journals 214; ‘impact factor’ 143; number of 14, 17; peer review and 138–46
see also
peer review; poor quality (‘crap’) 138–46; refusal to publish in 3–5; retractions and 134–6; statistical model errors in 129–31; studies of errors in papers published in 9–10, 129–31; summaries of important new research from 214–15; teaching and 214–15; youngest people to publish papers in 11–12

academic papers xvi; access to 32–4; cherry-picking from xvii, 5–8, 12, 174, 176–7, 192, 193, 252, 336, 349, 355; ‘citation classics’ 9–10, 102–3, 173; commercial ‘ghost writers’ and 25–6; investigative journalism work and 18; journalists linking work to 342, 344, 346; number of 14; peer review and
see
peer review; post-publication 4–5; press releases and xxi, 6, 29–31, 65, 66, 107–9, 119, 120, 121–2, 338–9, 340–2, 358–60; public relations and 358–60; publication bias 132–3, 136, 314, 315; references to other academic papers within allowing study of how ideas spread 26; refusal to publish in 3–5, 29–31; retractions and 134–6; studies of errors in 9–10, 129–31; titles of 297

Acousticom 366

acupuncture 39, 388

ADE 651 273–5

ADHD 40–2

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) 252

Afghanistan 231; crop captures in xx, 221–4

Ahn, Professor Anna 341

Aids; antiretroviral drugs and 140, 185, 281, 284, 285; Big Pharma and 186; birth control, abortion and US Christian aid groups 185; Catholic Church fight against condom use and 183–4; cures for 12, 182–3, 185–6, 366; denialism 138–41, 182–3, 185–6, 263, 273, 281–6; drug users and 182, 183, 233–4;
House of Numbers
film 281–3;
Medical Hypotheses
, Aids denial in
138–41; needle-exchange programmes and 182, 183; number of deaths from 20, 186, 309; power of ideas and 182–7; Roger Coghill and ‘the Aids test’ 366;
Spectator
, Aids denialism at the
xxi, 283–6; US Presidential Emergency Plan for Aids Relief 185