I Think You’ll Find It’s a Bit More Complicated Than That

Ben Goldacre is a doctor, writer, broadcaster and academic who specialises in unpicking dodgy scientific claims from drug companies, newspapers, government reports, PR people and quacks. His first book, Bad Science, reached Number One in the non-fiction charts, sold over 400,000 copies in the UK alone, and has been translated into 25 languages. He is 38 and lives in London.

'In a busy world where most of us believe what we're told, the science writer Goldacre looks behind the quackery. "Science is squabble," he says: he uses close critical appraisal to show that many medical claims are akin to magic and that television presents "real" science as cheap stage effects. And don't even get him started on bad academia, biased government and credulous media. In short, everything you take at face value is wrong. Maybe even this review: now read Ben.' The Times From the reviews of 'Bad Science': 'For sheer savagery, the illusion-destroying, joyous attack on the self-regarding, know-nothing orthodoxies of the modern middle classes, "Bad Science" can not be beaten. You'll laugh your head off, then throw all those expensive health foods in the bin.' Trevor Philips, Observer (Book of the Year) 'Unmissable...laying about himself in a froth of entirely justified indignation, Goldacre slams the mountebanks and bullshitters who misuse science. Few escape: drug companies, self-styled nutritionists, deluded researchers and journalists all get thoroughly duffed up. It is enormously enjoyable.' The Times (Book of the Year) From the reviews of 'Bad Pharma': 'This is a book to make you enraged - properly, bone-shakingly furious...A work of brilliance.' Daily Telegraph 'An important book. Ben Goldacre is angry, and by the time you put 'Bad Pharma' down, you should be too.' New Statesman 'A book that deserves to be widely read, because anyone who does read it cannot help feeling both uncomfortable and angry.' Economist