Ben Goldacre Quotes

You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.

Positive findings are around twice as likely to be published as negative findings. This is a cancer at the core of evidence-based medicine.

You are a placebo responder. Your body plays tricks on your mind. You cannot be trusted.

Amazing things happen when you pull individual pieces of information together into larger linked datasets: meaning emerges, as you produce facts from figures.

Just just because there are flaws in aircraft design that doesn't mean flying carpets exist.

Transparency and detail are everything in science.

As it is a major component of blood, water is vital for transporting oxygen to the brain. Heaven forbid that your blood should dry out.

Homeopathy pills are, after all, empty little sugar pills which seem to work, and so they embody [..] how we can be misled into thinking that any intervention is more effective than it really is.

The plural of anecdotes is not data

I spend a lot of time talking to people who disagree with me - I would go so far as to say that it's my favourite leisure activity.

Real science is all about critically appraising the evidence for somebody else's position.

Children can be disgusting, and often they can develop extraordinary talents, but I’m yet to meet any child who can stimulate his carotid arteries inside his ribcage.

I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.

I agree, the world would be a better place if doctors were less enthusiastic about adopting very new drugs.

I hope that you will be asked to participate in a trial at some stage in your disease

Data is the fabric of the modern world: just like we walk down pavements, so we trace routes through data, and build knowledge and products out of it.

These corporations run our culture, and they riddle it with bullshit.