Dr. Ben Goldacre: Battling Bad Science Column .Ben Michael Goldacre born 1974 is a British science writer, doctor and psychiatrist He is the author of The Guardian newspaper's weekly Bad Science column and a book of the same title, published by Fourth Estate in September 2008.
Goldacre is the son of Michael Goldacre, professor of public health at the University of Oxford, and the pop singer Susan Traynor, aka Noosha Fox, the nephew of science journalist Robyn Williams, and the great-great-grandson of Sir Henry Parkes.Ben is a best-selling author, broadcaster, medical doctor and academic who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims from drug companies, newspapers, government reports, PR people and quacks. Unpicking bad science is the best way to explain good science.
Career
Goldacre was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford then studied medicine at Magdalen College, Oxford where he obtained a first class degree in his preclinical studies in 1995. While at Oxford he also edited the student magazine Isis.He was a visiting researcher in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Milan, working on fMRI brain scans of language and executive function, and then he went on to study clinical medicine at UCL Medical School and qualified as a medical doctor in 2000. He received a master's degree in philosophy (funded by the British Academy) from King's College London. He passed the MRCPsych Part II examinations in December 2005 and became a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In 2008 he was a research fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. As of November 2009, Goldacre is a psychiatric registrar and Guardian research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford.
Bad Science column
Goldacre writes a weekly column, Bad Science, in the Saturday edition of The Guardian newspaper, and publishes expanded versions of the columns with reader comments on his website badscience.net.Devoted to criticism of scientific inaccuracy, health scares, pseudoscience and quackery, it focuses especially on examples from the mass media, consumer product marketing, problems with the pharmaceutical industry and its relationship to medical journals,and complementary and alternative medicine in Britain.
He has been a particular critic of the claims of television nutritionist Gillian McKeith, anti-immunisation campaigners (particularly followers of Andrew Wakefield such as Melanie Phillips and Jeni Barnett),Brain Gym, bogus positive MRSA swab stories in tabloids, SSRI antidepressants, publication bias,and the makers of the product Penta Water.While investigating McKeith's membership of the American Association of Nutritional Consultants, Goldacre purchased a "certified professional membership" on behalf of his late cat, Henrietta, from the same institution for $60.In February 2007, McKeith agreed to stop using the title "Dr" in her advertising following a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by a Bad Science reader.
In 2008, vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath sued Goldacre and The Guardian over three articles in which Goldacre criticised Rath's promotion of vitamin pills to AIDS sufferers in South African townships. Rath dropped his action in September 2008 and was ordered to pay initial costs of £220,000 to the Guardian. The paper is seeking full costs of £500,000, and Goldacre has expressed an interest in writing a book about Rath and South Africa, as a chapter on the subject had to be cut from his book while the litigation proceeded. The chapter was reinstated in a later edition of the book, and also published online.
In his spare time, Goldacre frequently delivers free talks about bad science — he describes himself as a "nerd evangelist".
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