Bad Science

Guardian columnist Dr Ben Goldacre takes us on a hilarious, invigorating and informative journey through the bad science we-re fed by the worst of the hacks and the quacks!

When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an -Aqua Detox- footbath, releasing her toxins into the water and turning it brown, he thought he-d try the same at home. -Like some kind of Johnny Ball cum Witchfinder General-, using his girlfriend-s Barbie doll, he gently passed an electrical current through the warm salt water. It turned brown. In his words: -before my very eyes, the world-s first Detox Barbie was sat, with her feet in a pool of brown sludge, purged of a weekend-s immorality.-

Dr Ben Goldacre is the author of the -Bad Science- column in the Guardian and his book is about all the -bad science- we are constantly bombarded with in the media and in advertising. At a time when science is used to prove everything and nothing, everyone has their own -bad science- moments - from the useless pie-chart on the back of cereal packets to the use of the word -visibly- in cosmetics ads. This book will help people to quantify their instincts - that a lot of the so-called -science- which appears in the media and in advertising is just wrong or misleading.

Satirical and amusing - and unafraid to expose the ridiculous - Bad Science provides the reader with the facts they need to differentiate the good from the bad. Full of spleen, this is a hilarious, invigorating and informative journey through the world of -bad science-.