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 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 - it 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.