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| Buy Bad Science |
Unlike many introductory textbooks that deal with issues of experimental design Bad Science avoids getting overly technical. It aims to explain things to lay people with a passing interest in the subject matter rather than people with a need to understand the information. Through this user friendliness the concepts become easy to grasp. Through repetition of ideas they become cemented in the mind of the reader. Through the use of entertaining, and sometimes frightening, specific examples the ideas are clarified and given something to hold onto.
However the more relaxed approach also gives rise to an interesting and aggravating weakness. Rather than providing the reader with the tools required to make the call on whether certain claims are valid or not or even allowing the data to speak for itself from the first time any study or person is mentioned the author makes his own view perfectly clear. Given the books focus on the importance of objectivity, of letting data speak for itself, this approach feels particularly jarring. Furthermore it inadvertently and counter-productively throws the responsibility of identifying bad science off the reader and back on the author themselves. While the author does a great job of identifying issues with research, as far as journalists go, Ben Goldacre is the exception not the rule.
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