ipl-logo

Bad Science Book Report

736 Words3 Pages

-1775 Book Assignment –
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Bad Science is a fascinating read on exposing the media exaggeration of new era nutritionist pitches and alternate medicines. The following four topics in the book were the ones that I personally found most intriguing. 1. The Placebo Effect 2. Homeopathy 3. Professor Patrick Holford and 4. Is Mainstream Medicine Evil?

Placebo effect the effect that occurs from someone benefiting from a normally irrelevant substance with no actual medical uses like sugar, distilled water, or saline solution. Instances of the power of the mind over discomfort, depression and anxiety are existing with readings showing how greater prices, attractive wrapping, dramatic techniques and a confident …show more content…

I tried out homeopathic medication because my grandfather was a homeopathic doctor back in my home country of Pakistan and he liked to give to us little sugar balls he would say were magic and could fix any headache and injury as children. I had been skeptical of homeopathic medication from the beginning. I learned in this chapter that my skepticism might have actually been a reason as to why homeopathy didn’t work. Homeopathy is an alternative medicine which works under the notion of a substance which causes symptoms of a disease in a healthy individual will then cure an ill individual of the same disease. Goldacre explains laughably that homeopathic remedies are diluted in distilled water to absurd proportions and must go through a process of being hammered …show more content…

Goldacre remarks on the moderately small percentage of orthodox medical doings 50 to 80 percent which might be named "evidence-based". The science and finances of drug growth are stated, with disapproval at the lack of individuality of industrial investigations and the negligence of Third World Country diseases. Some secretive tricks used by drug corporations to engineer positive test results for their products are explored. Publication bias created by researchers not publishing negative results is demonstrated with funnel plots. Examples are made of the SSRI antidepressants, Viox drugs. Improvement of trials lists to prevent abuses is proposed. Morals of drug advertising and manipulation of patient support groups are

Show More
Related
691 Words | 3 Pages

Michael Moss does a wonderful job describing the sciences junk food companies use to get us to buy their products in his article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”. First Moss uses solid facts to describe how junk food companies make their food sell. Secondly he proves that he is very knowledgable about the topic of his article, and that he conducted intensive research and interviews to gain the knowledge. Lastly Moss does a good job of making the article interesting by doing things such as providing facts, dialogue, and questions to keep your attention. Moss’ use of solid facts help describe and give the reader insight on the extremes of what junk food companies will go through to sell and make their products desirable.

Read More
569 Words | 3 Pages

Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach 158 pages This book takes place in Bluffton, Wisconsin. The main characters are Felton Reinsteine, Andrew Reinsteine, and Jerri. Felton is the older brother of Andrew, and Jerri is the mother of the two but she wants them to call her Jerri.

Read More
830 Words | 4 Pages

In chapter one (Escape from the Western Diet) of Michael Pollans book In Defense of Food, Pollan informs people about what he believes needs to happen in order to change the health issues that many people in American are facing today. Pollan begins the chapter by discussing the many different scientific theories that have been presented in response to the western diet and the western diseases that follow. He informs the readers that many of the theories conflict with one another and that even scientist gravitate towards simple one part solutions that many time fail to see the bigger picture of the problem. At this point in his book Pollan (2008) states one of his many thesis’s that, “People eating the Western diet are prone to complex of chronic

Read More
666 Words | 3 Pages

(Zimmerman) There are two types of magical thinking done by humans, but the first type of sympathetic magic, homeopathic magic, is deeply ingrained in our history of medicine, and trying to find these magical cures. She mentions several different stories from the past to demonstrate

Read More
709 Words | 3 Pages

Health and Medicine From the early 1900s to now the process of food has changed significantly. Today, thankfully there is cures for food poisoning and scientist are doing research and finding more and more information about the situation. Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle, to thank for the most part because without his book, people would not have known about how their food is made and where is comes from. Even in today’s society, foods are being recalled.

Read More
730 Words | 3 Pages

Michael Pollan’s Escape from the Western Diet connects well with what Mary Maxfield says in her article. Both Pollan and Maxfield talk about the ways that dieting is taking over American people’s healths and causing them to become even unhealthier. In Mary Maxfield’s argument she talks about how people believe everything that diet industries say, even though they know that the information they give you is false. This connects really well with what Michael Pollan talks about in his article, which is that people know that these theories that are used for the Western diet are not accurate, but yet they still decide to use the Western diet to help them become healthier.

Read More
717 Words | 3 Pages

In turn, he provides his own rules for escaping the western diet as well as the idea of nutritionist set forth by scientists.   Then Pollan explains that scientific theories of nutritionist focus on individual nutrients rather than foods as a whole. He further goes on to refute this claim mentioning that these scientific theories contradict with one another. Pollan explains “the scientists who blame our health problems on deficiencies of [micronutrients] are not the same scientists who see a sugar soaked diet leading to metabolic syndrome and from there to diabetes, heart disease…” (Pollan, 421).

Read More
387 Words | 2 Pages

The most home health remedies or healing beliefs are the medicinal plants utilized by herbolarios, heriberos, yerberos, or yerbateros. And the species often used are the arnica, cuahalalate, tila, gordolobo (Mullein), salvia, cola de caballo (horsetail), and boldo. All these medications have different purpose, for instance the arnica is commonly used for injuries such as sprains and bruises and is for skin only, gordolobo (Mullein) is used for cough, whooping cough, bronchitis and for many more purpose, the cola de caballo (horsetail) is used to treat many health conditions such as, gingivitis, tonsillitis, inflammation of the mucous membranes of the mouth, rheumatic disorders, edema, osteoarthritis, diabetes, acne, wounds, itchiness, rashes, burns and many more. Even do all this remedies are remedies of Zacatecas, now we even have them here in United States. Are remedies that the time has shown that they work and are

Read More
1218 Words | 5 Pages

This appeals to our physiological needs because naturally, humans need to eat food and to hear from a professional that there are other influences outside of food that are giving cause to the obesity crisis gives Americans a slight sigh of relief when it comes to the degree of toxicity of our foods. Furthermore, that people eat a more wholesome diet versus those that do not, tend to be healthier than that live on fast and processed foods,there are also stark differences to recognize between these classes that should be taken into account as well such as the tendency to engage in exercise, air quality, and other health considerations such as smoking and

Read More
204 Words | 1 Pages

Wall Street Journal Diction Analysis Gautam Naik, the author of Weight Gain Among Children Liked to Use of Antibiotics, is not so expressive when it comes to this article. Naik is still able to produce an informative and factual type of tone. Since this article talks about a scientific study on human children, the author cannot sugar coat what he is trying to say because it might imply false information to the audience. If the author changed any little sentence into an expression, they might not be able to receive the message that they were intended to receive.

Read More
869 Words | 4 Pages

Different cultures and religions believe in different types of healing practices, there are a lot of Americans that use herbal remedies to cure all sorts of illnesses. If these remedies don’t work, it is the responsibility of the individual and family members to seek out proper medical treatment for the

Read More
1431 Words | 6 Pages

A lot of surveys have been done over the years about the ethological aspect of these practices since they are sometimes considered holistic and unfounded since many healing practices are composed of rituals and sacred bundles used by shamans or witches. To a foreign audience, it might be at first disorienting and doubtful because medicine in our world is considered a science and revolves around collected data unlike religious practices. A survey made in 1994 states that “Many respondents indicated that they were unsure what traditional Native medicine entailed and thus had difficulty forming an opinion on whether it would be appropriate in various settings, especially in the hospital. In fact, 16% of the physicians indicated this directly, and another 14% left the question blank, when asked for their definition of traditional Native medicine (Table 2). Eighty-one percent believed that the use of traditional Native medicine was not an important issue in their community, although 41% knew of at least one patient in their practice using such medicines, and 15% knew of more than five patients using them.

Read More
1137 Words | 5 Pages

Social forces are common in cultures all around the world. Whether it is the compulsion of women to get married and have children or the thrust upon men to be adequate in supporting such families, there is clearly a boundary line that has been created between genders and what is expected of them. Judith Lorber’s “Believing is Seeing: Biology as Ideology” claims that gender is socially constructed. This theory illuminates a study on recreational steroid usage by Matthew Petrocelli, Trish Oberweis, and Joseph Petrocelli, titled “Getting Huge Getting Ripped: A Qualitative Exploration of Recreational Steroid Use.” By using Lorber as a frame to analyze Petrocelli’s work, I have concluded that expectations embedded in bodybuilding result from

Read More
1155 Words | 5 Pages

But with the help of Ben Goldacre and his book “Bad Science” I fee as though I am no able to spot bad science from a mile away. Drawing on such theories like the effect of placebo, sugar pills, and the dangers of miss informed ‘scientists’ claiming to have come up with new sciences behind certain foods (cough, cough. Dr. McKeith). In summary, the book has provided me with a breath of fresh air on controversial non scientific theories that have been built up through time and sold to us by ‘scientists who do not understand the aspects of basic biology. I would like to thank my professor for making us read this book and more importantly Ben Goldacre for shedding the light on Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma

Read More
860 Words | 4 Pages

This homeopathic medicine is very useful for males to cure

Read More

More about Bad Science Book Report

Related Topics

Open Document